#lifeolympics

[jessgartner]

2021 Life Olympics

I was serious about finding joy in 2021. I left the Christmas "joy" decorations up for the whole year so that I would be literally surrounded by JOY JOY JOY at home all year round. Christmas doesn't have a monopoly on joy, after all. We need joy for all seasons.

Here we go. Year o' joy:

Work - Gold

In many ways, this was my best year of work. Allovue brought on a new roster of dream school districts to work with in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Boston, LA, and even my dear Baltimore on our new allocation tool. There was so much to celebrate all year. Our team also welcomed six new bundles of joy this year which made for a lot cute baby content in the #family channel and Zoom. Want to make meetings more joyful? Add a gurgling baby or two or six.

I returned to traveling for the wonderful world of education conferences this year. The joyyyyy I felt on my first airplane ride in 15 months! I did pick-up the COVID variant du jour at one of those conferences, but getting back to in-person events with our partners and friends felt like restoring a huge missing part of my work. Remote options are great and necessary but, for me, there is no substitute for presenting to a live audience, having a lively roundtable discussion, and breaking bread with people in good ole' real life.

Running a company in the second year of a pandemic? Still stressful! Which brings me to...

Health - Bronze

It was a pretty rough year health-wise-- physically and mentally.

I started the year struggling to figure out the right cocktail of ADHD medicine-- a process that left me listless and depressed. It was a long, dark winter. I mentally army-crawled my way to the right doctor and medicine and when I finally got it right-- that was joy.

I got COVID in July and, while my symptoms were roughly equivalent to a bad flu and considered 'mild' by coronavirus standards, it still really knocked me down. The bigger problem, though, was that I had a lot of trouble getting back up. I don't know if it was lingering fatigue from the virus or burnout from two years of navigating a company through an evolving crisis (both?!) but I felt down for the count. My energy levels were so low that I could barely function and my brain felt like it was short-circuiting just trying to string together basic sentences. After a few weeks of feeling like this, I decided that I needed a real, hard break. I took off to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a 2-week yoga retreat and brought myself back to life. I spent two whole weeks doing nothing but yoga, reading, journaling, hiking, and eating delicious plant-based meals. I started to feel like a human again after the first week but it took me the full two weeks to feel like me again.

My exercise stats this year came in at about 85% of 2020 levels-- this is decent considering I lost almost 2 months of regular workouts due to COVID/fatigue. I recommitted to my yoga practice after the retreat and found a wonderful new yoga home at Baltimore Yoga Union-- which I learned about from one of my yoga instructors in Mexico because the universe works in weird and wonderful ways.

Home - Silver

I can hardly divorce this year in all things Home from the ongoing fiasco with my back alley flooding. I spent a truly obnoxious amount of time this year clearing the storm drain behind my house to prevent flooding and calling/emailing/tweeting at various City Council members and City agencies and neighborhood groups trying to get a longterm, permanent solution to this issue. As an interim solution, I had a wall/flood barrier installed around my basement door to try to mitigate flooding into my house.

I'm giving this a Silver because my persistence is starting to pay off. As of this writing, the City's Emergency Services department is reviewing a contract for a study of the block's storm-drain system which is allegedly accompanied with funding for a potential solution. Fingers crossed for a real solution by this time next year.

Horizons - Silver

All things considered, I could probably give this category Gold this year; I'm downgrading it to Silver because I feel like I really phoned this one in this year. I hit my modest reading goal of 30 books. I traveled as much as I could (Portland and Willamette Valley with Ali, Asheville and Breckenridge with Rob, Puerto Vallarta for yoga). I tried skiing for the first time since I was 3-years-old. I went on a yoga retreat. Aside from skiing, I don't really feel like I pushed myself to explore many new horizons as much this year. I was exhausted for so much of this year and my energy for trying and seeing and learning new things was at an all time low. More on that later.

Relationships - Gold

The relationships in my life were a real bright spot this year and the source of so much of my joy. My relationship with my former student and mentee offered such deep gratitude and joy this year. I got to spend time with my Mom, brother, and sister-in-law in Colorado. I was able to spend Father's Day weekend with my Dad. I ate a lot of delicious food and drank a lot of good wine with my aunt. I caught up with Ali for an awesome PNW trip. I reunited with my team for an incredible company retreat in Estes Park. I got to see my extended family for the holidays. I enjoyed many wonderful dinners and nights of deep discussion with the various loves of my life-- all of us navigating the respecting challenges of building companies, parenting, love and marriage, and all that other lovely messy human stuff.

And of course, I got to spend the better part of the year falling in love and being loved. I don't take a minute of it for granted.

I started this year with one Mary Oliver poem, so I'll end it with another one:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

2022

And as for 2022-- what's the word? I had a hard time coming up with my theme word this year; I just felt somewhat uninspired. Usually, it springs forth from the recesses of my brain-- sometimes as early as September-- and I just know. This year took some noodling along with some help from Rob.

A few things loosely informed my word for 2022:

I recently opened a cabinet that contains games, coloring books, and other various tools of leisure-- I all but had to clear the cobwebs to find what I was looking for.

Crystal said to me, "When I first met you, you did plays and took pictures and made art. I hope you get to do those things again someday." Leave it to a best friend to drop a piercing insight on you that will resonate for weeks.

I haven't touched my camera in years, lazily defaulting to the iPhone for all my picture-taking needs, and I miss it.

I read Four Thousand Weeks, which has prompted me to reflect on my perceptions of time

::Gestures to the state of the world::

It occurs to me that I have a very broken relationship with the whole concept of leisure. I have been working a lot (probably too much) and when I'm not working, I'm often preoccupied with thinking about work or feeling guilty for not working. I don't mind working a lot because I genuinely love my work and find a tremendous sense of purpose in what I do-- but I could stand to have a few fewer hours of my life revolve around it. My routine stress-level is not great.

I've always been an anxious achiever-type, but I haven't always had such a fraught relationship with fun. I used to make things all the time-- paintings, needlepoint, cross-stitch, scrapbooks, stationary, crochet, various craft projects. I sang and danced (poorly, but I tried) and played piano (also poorly) and did improv and read aloud plays with friends; we wrote new harmonies to songs and silly scripts and sat around making up dream cast lists for our favorite musicals for no reason at all. I took so many pictures and spent hours editing my favorites, and then, in college, even more hours processing in the darkroom. I played softball and soccer; sang in choirs and practiced mock trials. I had so many extracurricular activities I don't know how I ever made time for the curricular ones.

My extracurriculars have diminished considerably. I still do a singing lesson twice a month; I read and bike and do yoga-- but most of those have some kind of productivity goal attached to them. Singing is really the only thing I still do just for fun. My extracurriculars now are various boards and workgroups and committees that are really just work in disguise.

Being an adult can't all be fun and games-- but surely some of it can be? I'm going to try to rid myself of the belief that everything I do needs to be productive. I want to have enough energy for things other than work. I want to make and build and create-- I want to play.

2022: Let's play.

[jessgartner]

2020 Life Olympics

The real Olympics may have been canceled in 2020 but the Life Olympics persevered like the postal service of Olympics. 

First, I’d like to apologize for my role in the chaos of 2020 because I think I had a slight miscommunication with the powers that be and I feel partly responsible. Here was my plan for 2020: 

My theme for 2020 is Intention because I want to take the energy I feel right now and deploy it with more intentionality next year - bringing increased mindfulness to how I spend my time, money, physical and mental energy. And because I love wordplay, I also literally want to spend more time camping “in-tent” to enjoy more peace and quiet and beauty in nature.

The universe was like, “Oh, she wants to spend less money and more time outside? Well, shut it down. Shut the whole planet down.”

I mean, mission accomplished, I guess? I did spend less money and more time outside and had to be VERY intentional with my mental energy to survive the day-to-day morass of 2020. Next time, I will be more specific with my annual manifestations. Sorry to all. 

2020 was brutal for pretty much everything and everyone. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in some state of grief right now, including myself. I debated doing a Life Olympics at all this year, feeling like-- what is the point? Hundreds of thousands of people died, our democracy is hanging on by a thread, and millions of people lost jobs, businesses, and homes. 

Like many people, I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression this year which intensified as it got darker and colder outside. At a low point, I talked with my therapist about the struggle of just not wanting to do any of the things that usually bring me joy-- and how periods of relief were so fleeting. “But you have to keep doing those things,” she said, “even if they’re not working right now, you have to keep doing those things and trust the process; the joy will return.” 

So even though I don’t really feel like it and kind of feel like it’s dumb, I’m writing the 2020 Life Olympics. I’m trusting the process.

2020 Life Olympics Recap

Work - Participation Trophy

Starting a company is hard, operating a company is harder, but running a company during a global pandemic and economic crisis is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. 2020 was not a fun year to lead a business; it was hell. On March 15, the plan for the year pretty much went out the window and everything went into survival mode. I never take the company or my team for granted, but I’m particularly grateful to be able to usher this work into 2021.

Despite the craziness, we still had some big wins this year. We launched new product partnerships with PowerSchool and Amazon Business. We rebuilt our tool for equitably calculating district funding formulas. And I got to flex my creative muscles with EdFinToks! Throughout it all, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a team of people who are as compassionate as they are talented. 

I’m worried about public education more than ever after this year, but I’m going to keep fighting every day to make it work better for kids. 

This is Work-Lite but I also spent a good chunk of time this year leading the modernization workgroup for Bill Henry’s transition committee after his spring primary election to become the new Baltimore City Comptroller, ousting a 25-year incumbent, Joan Pratt. This was an enlightening (and infuriating) experience for me that gave me a glimpse into the operations of a segment of the City government. This process also really helped crystallize how much I enjoy making public agencies function more efficiently; I’m excited to see what Bill does with the recommendations (some are already being put in action!)

Health - Gold 

This is the second year in a row (and ever) that I’m giving myself a Gold medal for Health. This was easily a year that I could have regressed on all of my healthy habits and no one would have blamed me. Instead, I leaned into protecting and improving my physical and mental health in 2020. It’s not an exaggeration to say that walking probably saved my life this year. I spent a lot of time walking around my neighborhood and various state and city parks-- walking is maybe not the best word; I stomp and charge around like I have a score to settle with the ground beneath me. My walking increased 370% in 2020. This is a habit of 2020 that I’d like to keep. My brain and body are happier if I can spend a little time walking-- stomping-- around outside each day. 

I also did a lot of biking this summer. My cycling increased 200% this year-- with much more time spent cycling outdoors. My crowning achievement this year was biking to and from Annapolis:

I spent a LOT more time outside this year which was critical for my mental health. On the downside, I only did 90% as much yoga and 60% as much strength training, so I want to try to be a little more balanced next year. 

I also invested a lot in my mental health this year. I kept up with therapy every 2-4 weeks and in October I decided to pursue a formal diagnosis for ADHD which I definitely have! Needless to say, staying in one place this year has been a special kind of hell for me. 

Home - Silver

Well, I definitely spent less money this year. And the way I did spend money made me (mostly) sad: 

Travel down 70% 

Auto & Transportation up 200% (boo cars)

Shopping down 60%

Personal Care down 35% 

Gifts and donations up 200% 

Food and Dining down 40%

Entertainment down 35% (I kept up my singing lessons virtually which accounts for a lot of this category) 

2020 was quite the palate cleanser from my 2019 year of hedonism but maybe we can go for a happy medium in 2021? Just kidding-- I will resume my hedonist ways the minute the world opens. 

I also redid my home office like every other work-from-homer on the planet and replaced my crumbling kitchen floor so the house got some TLC. 

But nobody enjoyed having me home all year as much as Darwin:

Relationships - Bronze

What a weird year for relationships of all kinds. I’m giving this a Bronze because while I invested a lot into a few relationships this year, there are also a lot of people in my life to whom I haven’t been able to give my time and love. 

One of the most important relationships in my life this year was with one of my former students. After bouncing around in the foster system for many years, we reconnected around the holidays in 2019 and he started crashing with me while we tried to figure out stable housing and employment. He was arrested in January and was incarcerated for the next several months awaiting trial. Finally, we were able to negotiate a plea agreement with the State’s Attorney and he came home around Independence Day. We spent the next several months getting him set up with a phone and various identification documents-- a nightmare in normal times and a total abyss during the pandemic. I got him registered to vote when we got his ID card and I took him to vote for the first time (a supreme treat for this former social studies teacher):

He’s now got a full-time job and stable living situation. Calling this THE success of 2020. Thank you to everyone who helped me with resources all year for housing, legal processes, and documents. It takes a village. 

It was a bizarre year for family. We lost my grandmother in September, so not being able to spend the holidays together felt like an especially cruel loss. Other big losses this year include a trip to France to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother and my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding (Mosby seemed pretty ok with the alternative plan, though):

But in many ways, my family has been more together than ever this year thanks to prolific group chats and photo-sharing. Mostly, I’m just glad everyone else is safe and healthy. As my father often reminds me, “Our problems are small.” 

And dating? What to do with this weird Jane-Austen-esque dating scene-- as if modern dating weren’t fraught enough. Is this the universe punishing me for ending my 2019 dating hiatus early? I, for one, have given up. You win this one, pandemic. I’m just going to have my little Twitter crush and call it a year. Next year, though...

Horizons - Silver Gold 

You know what? It’s hard to expand your horizons without people or places. 

I did the best I could. I finally got back on track with my Goodreads challenge and actually had a really good year of reading, including finally embracing audiobooks through my Libro.fm subscriptions. I especially enjoyed Michelle Obama’s book Becoming and Mike Birbiglia’s The New One on audio-- both narrated by their authors. 

I camped in Pocomoke (MD), Western MD, Lake Michigan, and Ohiopyle (PA):

I explored over 30 new hiking/biking trails-- some favorites including the Youghiegheny River trail in PA, the NCR trail, Catoctin Mountain, the C&O Canal Towpath, Annapolis Rock, and of course, Stoney Run in my backyard. 

I left Facebook and started the Life Olympics newsletter. I’ll be honest, I don’t miss Facebook but I also don’t understand where that energy, time, and brain space went. I was spending cumulatively hours a day mindlessly scrolling Facebook and I quit cold turkey and barely noticed-- what black hole of our brains does social media occupy? I kind of thought that with all that extra time I would write the next great American novel or something. I’m probably spending a little more time on Twitter, which I could stand to cut back on. Other than that, I think I was just trying to process the shitstorm of this year. Maybe I’ll write the next great American novel post-pandemic. 

For the first time in my life, I feel somewhat ‘caught up’ on pop-culture. I finally watched Parks and Recreation (twice); I watched The Mandalorian and finally actually watched Star Wars (episodes IV-IX); I watched the final seasons of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek; I’m caught up on Insecure; I watched The Prom and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jingle Jangle; I even started Bridgerton. I know what everyone is talking about and I’m catching so many more pop-culture references these days. (I guess instead of writing the next great American novel I watched Netflix?)

2020 Lessons

I’ve spent plenty of time mourning the missed opportunities of 2020 and will probably always wonder what this year could have been in an alternate universe with a functioning government. But we only have this reality for now, and we made the best of it. 

I wanted to slow down in 2020, try to be more intentional, more mindful, and...

No thank you! I liked the pace of my life; it makes my brain and heart happy. I’m happiest when I wake up in a different city three days in a row. I like darting around every borough of Manhattan for nine meetings and three cocktails and then taking a red-eye to Europe. I want to run around to eight conferences for 18-hours a day for three weeks and then sleep for 22 hours. I miss overloading my brain so much that I need a deprivation chamber to sleep. This is who I am. This is how I like to live. And when I was locked down alone in the house for a year, slowing down, being mindful, I never once thought, “I should have... when I had the chance.” Because I always did. And I always will. 

2021

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver

We’ve had enough grief. 2021 is going to be all about joy.

Universe, let me be clear: this is not a euphemism or code or secret signal.

I want pure, unadulterated, abundant, joy. I want multi-course dinners in restaurants with lots of close friends and good wine. I want the virus so far gone that I can make-out with handsome strangers. I want a rollicking good time in France and/or Brazil and/or Prague and/or New Zealand and/or Bali. I want to spend the day after Christmas in NYC with my father. I want to be a glutton for theatre and art and music. I want celebrations and parties and sequins. 

I want to shake with joy. 

If you’d like to receive the (shorter) monthly Life Olympics, subscribe here. 

[jessgartner]

2019 Life Olympics

At the end of 2018, I was fried: emotionally, physically, financially. It had been a brutal year that took a huge toll on my health and home. I kept having these episodes where I woke up in the middle of the night with my heart racing so fast that I worried it would explode. My GERD was the worst it had ever been, I was head-cold sick more than not, and I was literally struggling to breathe. The past few years of work were catching up to me and my body was showing it. I was honestly starting to feel like I would certainly die of some stress-related disorder before I turned 40. And then one of my friends died from a heart-attack and I made the decision that some things had to change. My friends tease me that I only do things in my personal life when they benefit Allovue and in many ways, this was true here, too. I realized last year that I wanted to do this work for a long time to come. And I realized that my life's work would be cut pretty short if I killed myself from stress before I turned 35. When I shared this with my exec coach as well as how past attempts to prioritize my health had always fallen by the wayside she said, "Well. I think you're just going to have to make up your mind to... do it." So I did it.

This year was all about getting my body, mind, and heart in a place that allows me to do work that I care about for the rest of my life if I want to (and ensuring that the "rest of my life" is actually a good long time). 2019 was about setting boundaries on my time and energy so that I could be a fully-functioning whole healthy person. And it turned out that in a year in which my general mantra was to "do less" (no more setting +30 annuals goals and working myself into a stress-addled mess), my life felt the fullest. Here we go:

2019 Life Olympics Recap

Career - Gold

Please try not to laugh at my extremely "duh" realization that the more I took care of myself, the more the company thrived. My exec coach deemed my transition from December 2018 to January 2019 a "DOS to Windows" level upgrade in my general approach to business strategy. In no small part, this is because we were raising money and it's just a little easier to feel confident with $4M in fresh funding in the bank. But I took that gasoline and poured fire on it - unleashing ideas and plans and ambitions that I had been holding back on for years. One Board member asked me in December, "Do you want to be a large chicken or do you want to be a 10-ft tall murder bird?" 

Let's not psychoanalyze this too much but for some reason this image really resonated with me and I spent the better part of this year channeling this vibrant Cassowary:

Don't ask me why, but it worked. Allovue had a banner year and we're on track to fulfilling a vision that I have been working towards for 7 nearly years.

Sharply juxtaposed with my murder bird imagery, it's worth mentioning another consequence from this year of being a whole person: I was kinder. It turns out that sleep and exercise and proper nutrition increase your capacity for patience and kindness, too. I made more time for people and I felt less reactive. I was able to process setbacks more quickly and productively. I had energy for more team outings. I started doing weekly CEO Chats where I spend 30 minutes 1:1 with every member of the company. It's my favorite part of the week. I even noticed this in small ways, like having the energy to make friendly conversation with Lyft drivers. Being too tired to be friendly is a state of being that I plan I leave in the dust of this decade.

Lastly, this year I felt like I led the company with the most love. Love for the work, love for our team, and love for our partners. While there are many forces and headlines in this capitalist world that may lead you to believe that love and success are incompatible, I humbly, flatly disagree. Leading from a place of love and kindness is the only way that feels right to me. And if the past few years have taught me anything about business: if it feels right, it is right. They don't call it the golden rule for nothin'.

Home - Silver

This was a tricky one! First: there were no catastrophes this year! After 2018's cascade of house-related disasters (ceiling caving in! flood! awful tenants! roof leaks!) I was hoping the gods of hearth and home would leave me alone this year. As a peace offering, I gave my bedroom a little makeover and finalized my will. For good measure, I cleaned up my backyard and built a little porch. And my property manager has been an actual gift from the heavens. All was quiet on the homefront this year.

But, um. Finance is also in this category. And on matters of personal finance this year? Well, this was an area of my life considerably devoid of boundaries. Dinners, drinks, wine clubs, concerts, personal training, specialists, massages, travel, shopping, new hobbies, home improvements - I did it all. I was a pure hedonist this whole year, as you probably already know if you follow me on Instagram. So why did this spending spree year not plunge me into the depths of "Did Not Place"? Because I believe in balance in all things. Since starting Allovue, I've been very scrappy. In the first year of Allovue, my gross income was $9K. The following year, it was about $20K. It's risen to more livable wages over the past 5 years, but I've still been at-times frugal to a fault. So this year, I let loose a little. I indulged. I explored. I released myself from fretting about whether I should splurge the extra $4 on the meal I really wanted. I tipped very generously. I had a LOT of fun. But I still did all of this within my means, so it's not as though I drove myself into debt on fancy dinners. I had many wonderful experiences this year and no regrets about a year of limited saving. Next year, though, is going to be a year of saving and mostly free fun. I already canceled the wine club memberships.

Health - Gold

GOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDD. I've never given myself Gold in this category before! I'm actually tearing up a little bit right now because it took me 10 years of working at this entirely self-constructed, self-imposed framework for adult living to feel like I did a good job taking care of my own physical health but I did it and I feel great. I had so much help, though! I worked with an allergist who helped with my persistent colds (non-allergic rhinitis from years of not treating my allergies effectively)

and

GERD (apparently sinus health is closely connected with digestive health). I worked with a personal trainer to help me learn more about strength training and increased my muscle mass by about 5%. I worked with a nutritionist who helped me identify food triggers and get rid of the GERD entirely and get off all the prescription meds I had been using to treat it. I started working with a therapist to take care of my mental health. I increased my physical activity by 250% and had the most consistent year of exercise ever. I slept well. I took vacations and breaks when I needed them. I reduced my sugar intake. I learned about protein! I figured out the daily breakdown of fat, protein, and carbs that makes me feel best. And perhaps most importantly, I didn't allow my energy to be drained by things that I had no power over. There is really something to that serenity prayer and I can't overstate the benefit to physical and mental health by learning to recognize the things that are out of my control and letting that shit go.

So this was a categorical improvement for me this year, but there is still a lot of work I need to do in the next decade on my body image. It's hard for me to admit this but I think it's important to be honest about challenges as much as celebrating successes. For as long as I can remember, I have struggled mightily with body dysmorphia, disordered eating, and general body image. At times, I have starved myself on as little as 800-calories a day; I have tried every fast, juice-cleanse, colon-cleanse, fad diet, and magic pill on the market. The negative self-talk is constant and vicious; I often wonder what on earth I could accomplish if I ever managed to free up all that mental energy. I have a near-phobia of taking pictures because I am so paranoid about how I will look. I have a complicated relationship with mirrors. I have extreme anxiety about bread. In the summer of 2016 I contracted a food-borne illness on vacation and couldn't eat or drink much of anything without vomiting for two months. I had a parasite and it was the best I had ever felt about my body.

I'm not utterly lacking in self-confidence: I have confidence in my ideas, my ability to solve problems, my judgment, my ability to love, and my capacity for creativity. But I live in a world that constantly reminds me that what's in a woman's head doesn't count for much if we can't count her abs. I have been thus far unsuccessful at squelching that narrative internally. For a while, I was under the impression that this was just a narrative of immaturity. I imagined that when I turned 30, I would suddenly be very wise and self-accepting. When that didn't happen, the body-hate somehow intensified instead: How are you over 30 and still obsessing over this? Why can't you let this go?

This is a work in progress and something I'm going to prioritize with my therapist and nutritionist in 2020. My goal is to someday be able to look in the mirror or at a picture of myself and feel proud. Please do not interpret this as an invitation to tell me that I look good or that you think I'm thin or pretty or whatever. It is not invited and it will not help. I do not need any external validation on these matters; this is an inside job. I don't feel comfortable sharing all of this, but if there's anyone else out there who always feels like they are 10, 15, or 100 pounds away from happiness, know that you are not alone.

Soul - Gold

Picking up the thread on spending, you can see that I really enjoyed myself this year. I indulged in everything that brings me pleasure and joy this year: delicious gastronomic experiences; travel to Cancun, London, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Miami, and Tulum; concerts; plays; museums; singing. I felt creatively on fire this year and attribute a good chunk of that to surrounding myself with creative energy at every occasion. I also rediscovered a love of camping this year. I bought some new gear and enjoyed several camping trips around Maryland before it got too cold this Fall. My only failing/complaint in this category is that I had a lackluster and uninspired year of reading and writing. I think it was offset enough by my other creative experiences but I do want to reprioritize reading again next year.

Relationships - Gold

I know this category is the only one you care about and that's why I save it for last. Hopefully, I tricked you into caring about the rest of my life, but if you skipped to the end I'll forgive you. As many of you know, this year I took a big hiatus from dating. I quietly started my hiatus around September of 2018 and broke my hiatus in August 2019 when I met someone in real life who I actually wanted to go out with. Probably because I was fried in other realms in my life, I was beyond exhausted with dating last year. It became something I completely dreaded and I decided I needed a long hard break from trying. Did it work? Yes. Better than I imagined.

Up until hiatus, dating felt like something I needed to do to fill a missing part of my life or myself. I was operating from a deficit standpoint. I felt like lots of things in my life were great but my singleness represented some hole or flaw that needed correcting. As a result, the act of dating felt extremely high stakes and I always felt anxious and insecure about it. Giving myself the freedom to not care or not try at all was truly liberating. Suddenly, I was not worried about reserving time and space in my life for something or someone that may or may not materialize. I made plans with friends, I went on trips, and I planned my evenings and weekends with zero regards to men who may or may not commit to plans; who may or may not cancel at the last moment. My life felt instantly larger. Time and space just expanded. Instead of feeling like a restriction, my world opened up. I spent so much time with friends this year. And did I mention how much fun I had? I also made more time for my parents and enjoyed trips and concerts and other activities with them, too.

I'm dating again but it feels completely different now. I learned that my life and my heart are already full. Nothing at all is missing or broken. Now dating is a value-add activity only and that is a completely different game - one that doesn't make me feel anxious at all. I also learned to expand my definition of love this year. All the romantic rhetoric about finding "the one" or finding love "at last" or "saving love" are really... limiting. Taking romantic love off the table for a year allowed me to receive and give love in so many other ways: friend love, parental love, coworker love, self-love, city love, etc. In a year that I thought would require an absence of love, I actually experienced the greatest abundance of love. My definition of love had been narrow; I was being far too precious about it. As I expanded my definition, I experienced love and gave it more abundantly. So I guess it's true what they say: you find love when you stop looking for it - it just looks and feels differently than I expected.

2020

So that's a wrap on 10 years of the Life Olympics! Next year, I am planning to bring lots of energy inspired by Baby Yoda and Moira Rose. My theme for 2020 is Intention because I want to take the energy I feel right now and deploy it with more intentionality next year - bringing increased mindfulness to how I spend my time, money, physical and mental energy. And because I love wordplay, I also literally want to spend more time camping "in-tent" to enjoy more peace and quiet and beauty in nature.

When I started working with the nutritionist she gave me a list about "Mindful Eating" which I scoffed at for having tips like "Chew your food" but decided to try anyway. As it turns out, I was not really chewing my food at all, so much as just quickly and eagerly swallowing whole bites - much like the rest of my life. In 2020, instead of swallowing life whole, I'll learn to chew it.

[jessgartner]

2018 Life Olympics

Let's get one thing straight: 2018 was not a year. 2018 was actually a decade in annum's disguise. Things happened in January or February 2018 that I would have blindly guessed had occurred at least three years ago. The Winter Olympics, for example. How do you measure a year? In heartburn, in wrinkles, in gray hairs, in stress disorders.

Have you ever had a moment when you come face-to-face with your own specific brand of crazy? (I know the answer is yes because you're reading this and all of my friends and casual observers are a little bit crazy. It takes one to know one). Anywho, the other day I sat down to do my annual reconciliation of goals that I set this time last year... all 32 of them. 32 goals. What the what? What sort of lunatic sets 32 annual goals? Even several days later, I can't even type this without laughing at myself. Some of these goals are things like "Raise X million dollars" - a months-long affair involving dozens or hundreds of tasks. 1/32! I tallied it up and I somehow managed to hit 20 of these crazy goals, in a year that I had written off as "terrible," "horrible," "no good," and "very bad."

Coincidentally, my word for 2019 is "boundaries" - may I set them, may I respect them.

2018 Life Olympics Recap

Career - Bronze

By objective measures, Allovue had a pretty good year. We are now supporting over $10 billion in school budgets for about one million students - milestones of which I'm very proud. We added terrific people to our team, we made huge improvements to the product, we hosted an awesome Summit, and we brought on exciting new partners.

Personally, I just didn't feel like it was my best year. This is partly because I set insane expectations for myself and then felt disappointed when I couldn't match them. My attention was divided across several core functions, which made me feel generally frazzled and unfocused for large swaths of the year. When I get stressed, my instinct is to double-down and work harder, which catalyzes a vicious spiral of overwork/exhaustion.

At least twice this year, I dismissed serious health issues as "probably just from stress" and I got sick more than I have in the past several years combined. Next year, I'm putting boundaries in place to help me focus on the goals that really matter to me and to do so with a clear head and a healthy body.

Home - Did not place

Ooph. The gods of hearth and home were not on my side this year. I had an attempted break-in at my rental house that resulted in someone smashing through my backyard fence Hulk-style. My second-floor ceiling caved-in from water damage. Tenants made a mess of the house, resulting in three months of deep-cleaning and painting (and income-loss). My basement flooded. I discovered (because I smelled gas one night) that the gas line in my house was too small (who even knew that was a thing?) and had to be entirely ripped out and replaced. My taxes increased 300 percent. And to top off the year, a new roof. Throughout all of this, I really tried to exercise gratitude for having house(s) in which things break, but it still sucks to write those checks. I'm praying that all will be quiet on the home-front next year. Please.

::Burns sage::

Health - Bronze

While I felt sick and run-down quite a bit this year, I still did some healthy things that I'm proud of. Early in the year, I made the decision to give up my car when the lease was up. I have always characterized my driving as "all of the adrenaline but none of the skill of Batman" and I think it's maybe safer for everyone if I sit in the passenger seat of cars. I anticipated that I would spend about as much money on transportation with increased rideshare spending, but thought the trade-off of stress and time spent driving would be a net good. I was wrong:

In 2017, I spent $5,067 on transportation. In 2018, I increased my spending on ride-share 1000% but it still didn't come close to the total cost of having a car. In 2018, I spent $2,791, which includes the remaining $550 balance on my car payments. If I take that out and factor in post-car ride-share spending, I'm still saving 50% or more on transportation costs. This is wild. One cost not shown here, since it's a one-time expense, is my new bike. I could buy and outfit a brand new bike every year and still only hit about 75% of my spending level with a car. I'm extremely pleased with this decision.

I also joined a new gym and hired a personal trainer this year. These costs probably offset what I saved in transportation, but I feel good about investing in my health. I exercised more regularly this year than ever before, even if it wasn't quite at the level of frequency I was aiming for, and I built a lot of muscle with weight training.

My biggest health fails this year were 1) eating like crap during busy travel seasons and 2) generally eating way too much sugar. I'm increasingly seeing studies about the long-term health consequences of processed foods and sugar. I don't do well with total elimination diets, but I want to dramatically reduce my intake of sugar, refined carbs, and processed foods, as well as managing my diet better when I'm on the road.

Soul - Silver

Shockingly, this was my best category this year. I hit the most goals in this LO category, which included time for writing, singing, traveling, theatre/concert-going, and other activities that make my soul happy. I saw some terrific performances this year, including Audra McDonald and Cynthia Erivo at BSO, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Wonder in My Soul at CenterStage, Waitress at Hippodrome, Ingrid Michaelson at the Beacon, Spring Awakening at StillPointe, Remember Jones at Soundstage, Wye Oak at Ottobar, and Once on This Island on Broadway. I didn't write quite as much as I had hoped (ya'll, I thought I was going to draft two books this year. My concept of time is WILD.) But I still had op-eds published in The Baltimore Sun and Forbes, as well as a few pieces in Medium and on my own blog. I also sang a lot of songs that I loved this year and played the piano more than I have in years. More of all this. I fell short of my 36-book reading goal, but still clocked in a respectable 32 - my second-best reading year since I started tracking in 2012. For the past several years, I've been making a conscious effort to diversify the authors I'm reading. This year, 53% of books I read were authored by people of color and 60% were authored by women. Only 15% were authored by men of color, so that's an area for improvement next year.

Favorite novel(s): Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Favorite poetry: Helium by Rudy Francisco, Felicity by Mary Oliver

Favorite business/strategy: The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath; Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

Favorite memoir/essays: we are never meeting in real life. by Samantha Irby; We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

Relationships - Bronze

I had a fun time engaging with friends and family in new ways this year. I hosted a wine-tasting night and piano concert at my house. I went on trips and to festivals with friends. I also made peace with letting go of some relationships. I spent time with my family and celebrated 21 years of our Boxing Day tradition with my Dad.

I'm taking a hiatus from dating through 2019; at least, a sabbatical from trying. The various apps and profiles have been deleted; my swiping finger is retired. I've been at this game for over a decade with very little success and there's absolutely nothing else in my life that I would invest this much time in for so little joy or purpose. A big part of my goal for 2018 was to retire old narratives that no longer suit me and I decided around November that this story of infinite first dates is just not working for me. For a while, it was fun, then funny. At some point, though, it turned into an exercise in drudgery. I cannot continue to invest this much time and emotional labor and hope into an activity that continuously drains and disappoints me. There is too much else far more worthy of my time and energy: myself, Allovue, my family, my friends - the true loves of my life.

Listen. I see you grinning over there, thinking, "Oh, this is it. Now that she has given up, love is just going to drop right into her lap." I think you've been watching too many Hallmark Holiday movies; this is not The Christmas Crush. This is the real world where men flake and cheat and ghost and zombie and ghost again and I'm all the way over it. Let me be. I can live happily ever after anyway.

Andddd that's a wrap on 2018. I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. I'm closing out the year in Mexico, binge-reading novels, listening to the ocean, doing yoga, eating chilaquiles, and setting a reasonable number of goals that (mostly) adhere to the confines of the space-time continuum. See you on the other side.

[jessgartner]

2017 Life Olympics

Another year of the Life Olympics in the books. A few solid milestones of progress. A few respectable efforts. And a few “How are we here again?” disappointments. The mile-markers are fun, but the disappointments are more to the point; the Life Olympics is asymptotic. I’m resisting the urge to put a value judgment on 2017. In turns, I felt depleted and rejuvenated.

My main takeaway for the year is that I have decidedly outgrown some personal narratives and it's time to rewrite them. How would you describe yourself in 140 characters? What is your personal elevator pitch? These “I’m a [_______] person” stories that we tell ourselves (and others) shape our sense of identity, our behavior, our ambitions - even our fashion choices. Ultimately, these narratives shape our lives, so what stories are you telling yourself? Are they serving you well?

What do your narratives say about your body? About your capacity to love and be loved? About your ability to do your job well? About your style? About your values? About your worth? Which ones are holding you back?

Some of my narratives, I’ve simply outgrown; what was true five years ago is no longer totally accurate or relevant today. Some of my narratives are just toxic vestiges of adolescence that have never served me well but are deeply ingrained in my sense of self and hard to slough off.

My plan for 2018 is to surround myself with people, ideas, and experiences that will help me construct positive and accurate new narratives.

I still have a few hours to marinate in the triumphs and failures of 2017, so here we go:

Career – Silver

This was a big year for Allovue. We placed a big bet on a new product, reworked our internal processes, and made some big transitions on the team. As we approach the five-year mark of our existence, I’ve been reflecting on how this journey started and where we are today. Last week, I flipped through my 2013-Q1 journal, where I found sketches for what became the product roadmap for the next five years. Every component of our product today is in there (cementing my deep belief in writing things down). As I reflect on Allovue’s narratives, I have perhaps allowed people to focus too much on the improbability of Allovue’s founding. In 2018, Allovue is going to shed its adolescent insecurities, too.

Health – Bronze

This damn category. Constant travel continues to destroy my physical health efforts. My sense of well-being is inversely proportional to conference season. Gretchen Rubin’s writing on habits and goals made me rethink my approach to health goals. “Lose 10 pounds” shows up in nearly every quarterly goals page forever. I realized that this goal is kind of meaningless to me because I’m more motivated by action plans than end-states. Sure, it would be nice to lose 10 pounds, but that goal has nothing to do with what I actually care about: feeling healthy and looking fit. The most rational part of my brain knows that losing 10 pounds doesn’t actually have much to do with feeling or looking healthy – I could lose 10 pounds if I were to get a parasite (note: has happened; do not recommend), but that wouldn’t actually mean that I’ve accomplished the spirit of that goal. I started rewriting these goals to be specifically oriented around why I care about this and what I need to do to make it happen. Next, I need to do a better job planning around the constraints in my life, like building workout habits around mobile routines that I can do anywhere.

Home – Gold

I am supremely pleased with this category this year. I bought a new house just a block and a half from our office and I will be turning in my leased car in a couple of weeks. (This should probably also go into Health because it will do wonders for my safety to stop driving.) There are so many mental health consequences to this area of my life, too. While I enjoyed an amazing run with AirBNB for five years, it has been nice to enjoy some privacy at home. I’ve been cooking (mostly in the Instant Pot) and entertaining more, which has made the house feel like home quickly.

Moving inspired a big purge of stuff. Most notably, I decided to give away most of the books I had been hoarding and moving around since college. I had accumulated over 600 books at my previous house and I was determined to part with most of them (I probably didn’t need to hold onto those AP study guides). I used the Kon-Mari method, flipped through each one and whittled down my collection to about 50 books that held a certain joy for me, as well as about 25 that I hadn’t read yet but promised to do so within a year. Marie Kondo is a little wacky, but that method works. I now have my very own real-life Ideal Bookshelf that does, in fact, bring me great joy.

Soul – Bronze

This is borderline Did Not Place. My poor soul. My annual Goodreads Challenge performance was an embarrassment that ruined a six-year streak of reading growth. Woe! The only saving grace is that I did make good on my intention to read books from more diverse authors. This year, 40 percent of authors I read were people of color (compared to 15 percent last year) and 55 percent were women (compared to 48 percent last year). It wasn’t difficult to be mindful of author diversity, but it was necessary.

It was a fun year of (leisure) travel. My friend Ali and I spent a week adventuring in Croatia and Montenegro where we jumped off cliffs into the Adriatic Sea and drove up and down narrow mountain switch-backs at “bee speed,” as we named the speed at which a buzzing bee passes you on the road. Hey, we lived to tell about it. I’m currently sitting on the balcony of a house in beautiful Negril, Jamaica, which isn’t a bad place to ring in the new year. I had great travel experiences with friends this year, but for the first time in a while, I didn’t take any solo sojourns. If you haven’t traveled alone, it may seem lonely, but it’s actually incredibly rejuvenating. I missed the experience this year and need to make time for an independent adventure next year.

Lastly, the state of country hurt my soul this year – daily. America needs to get its act together. On the subject of narratives, this country needs to reclaim its own this year.

Relationships – Silver

I want to be able to celebrate the rich relationships I have in my life – with my parents, friends, colleagues – but there’s a preoccupation with my romantic life that seems to overshadow this category of my life. On that, all I will say is this: I refuse to settle until I find what I’m looking for and I’ll let you know when I find it because I’ll know it when I see it.

All in all, a good year of growth and plenty of room for improvement.

Adios 2017!

Bienvenue 2018!

[jessgartner]

2016 Life Olympics

I love a good reset. Birthdays. School years. Fiscal years. Calendar years. New quarters, months, weeks, days. We get a lot of opportunities to pause, reflect, and press the reset button. For all of my post-college adult life, the Life Olympics has helped me take full advantage of these temporal markers, but the annual round-up is still my favorite.

Career - Bronze

What a weird year for Allovue. We started 2016 fresh off of a Series A raise with big plans and big expectations for the year ahead. 2016 would mark the first full year that our product was in the market. Our team grew from 8 people in November 2015 to 24 by the end of 2016. We moved into a beautiful new office. We expanded to new states, with districts large and small, urban and rural. We hosted our first Future of Education Finance Summit. We launched our blog. We redesigned our product and built a new budget module.

Why the bronze, then? I wish I could tell you I was fully prepared for the nuanced challenges that come with 300% growth in a year, but there's just no preparing for that. At several points throughout the year, I thought to myself, "So this is why investors don't like first-time founders, huh?" I reflected a lot on the difference between bad decisions and wrong decisions: with bad decisions, you choose an option that flies in the face of data, advice, and general signs of trouble; with wrong decisions, you choose an option that made a lot of sense at the time, with the information at hand, and it later turned out to be wrong. Wrong decisions tend to be clear in hindsight, and I made a few of those this year. I'm ending the year a little more sobered on the myriad challenges of building something big and transformative, yet just as steadfast on mission and vision. My plan for 2017 is much more concrete and specific. In nearly 4 years of this work, 2016 may have led me up the steepest learning curve yet. In 2017, I'll need to put those those lessons to good use.

Health - Silver

You know what? Not horrible. This was probably my most consistently healthy year, despite being on the road at least half the year and traveling about 150K miles. I even finally conquered the Whole 30 Challenge and got back down to my college weight before my 30th birthday. Silver because I still get into ruts with exercise and eating well (do you KNOW how hard it is to eat healthy in an airport?), and still prioritize work over health when push comes to shove. I aspire to be the kind person who maintains their diet and exercise regimen no matter what, but I'm not there yet. I've done a better job this year of saying, "Hey girl, you can take a 2 hour break for yoga. The spreadsheets will be here when you get back I PROMISE," but I'm still not very good at keeping health practices sacred. Customer wants me somewhere? Investor calls? Employee has an issue? All those things take precedence. I'm not at all convinced that they shouldn't. Maybe someday I'll have a normal job and feel like work can wait, but right now I still prioritize all things Allovue over my personal needs, and I'm kind of ok with that.Home - GoldMy little house is looking good. I finally fixed a leak that has been plaguing me for years, refinanced my mortgage, installed window treatments throughout the house, and got rid of some nasty overgrown tree branches. I finished redecorating a few rooms, and had a gangbusters year with AirBNB. This year, my AirBNB earnings fully covered the costs of my mortgage, taxes, and internet service. This has afforded me the financial freedom to save, invest, and travel. And ya'll thought this was a terrible idea. I also hit all my personal finance goals this year by getting myself fully out of "I-floated-the-company-and-my-non-salaried-life-on-my-credit-card-for-a-little-while-debt" and finally prioritized savings.

In college, I made a deal with myself: I could make risk-it-all/you-only-live-once financial choices until I turned 30, and then I had to get serious about saving because I had officially made it out of my twenties alive. I took advantage of this by traveling all over the world with every spare cent, buying a house I couldn't really afford, and quitting my job and cashing out my pension to chase a dream/vision. I have no regrets about any of this, but I turned 30 in November, so it's time to hold up my other end of the bargain.

Spirit - Silver

A pretty good year for this old soul. I took trips to Paris, Cancun, Vegas, and back to the Dominican Republic for some good old-fashioned unplugging. I kept up with my singing. I hit my Goodreads goal of 35 books. I went to the symphony a lot. I saw Mike Birbiglia's live stand-up. I've also just started calling bullshit more candidly when I see it, and that's gotta be good for my soul.

I didn't write as much as I would have liked to, so that's a goal for 2017. I also didn't see as much theatre as I would have liked to. And at this point, I'm really rusty on performing. I miss it, and need to find a way to incorporate it into my life that doesn't involve 4 hours of rehearsal every night for 3 months.

Relationships - Gold fucking star 

The best thing I did this year on the relationships front was to reconnect with Ali, my best friend from college. She lives in California and we'd mostly fallen out of touch during the past few years. I learned from the Book of Face that she had landed the lead role in a Neil Labute play in Long Beach. I secretly booked a ticket and a flight and surprised her at the stage door. The look on her face (and subsequent mauling) when she realized it was me, is probably one of my top 5 memories. This was in July, and we've rendezvoused to Las Vegas, dined in LA, and spent my birthday weekend in Baltimore (her surprise to me) since then.

While I'll probably never forgive the writers of How I Met Your Mother for their dream-crushing series finale, this Ted Mosby quote sticks with me:

"That's how it goes kids. The friends, neighbors, drinking buddies, and partners in crime you love so much when you're young, as the years go by, you just lose touch. You will be shocked, kids, when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever. That's why, when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it."

Truth be told, it hasn't been that hard to meet up with her semi-regularly - it just requires some effort and planning. So, find the people in your life worth the effort, and just make the effort. It's so worth it.

And my love life? My grandmother is banned from asking about it, and so are you.

In conclusion

So this is interesting: the categories in which I usually suck - not so bad this year! I think I'm doing a better job at being a whole person. I'd still rather be working than doing almost anything else all the time, but so what? My work gives my life meaning and purpose, so it makes sense that I would want to spend as much time as possible on it. I've come to accept this, rather than feel bad about it.

I often find myself driving alone across a stretch of America very late at night, on my way to some Residence Inn where I can heat up a frozen Amy's lasagna from the lobby market before collapsing in a room that looks uncannily similar in every city in the country. I hum a little Taylor Swift, "Midniiiiight, long driiiiives," headlights piercing the black night.

"There are students in those hills," I think to myself; and this is my manifest destiny.

[jessgartner]

2015 Life Olympics

December 31. Another year of the Life Olympics comes to a close. It’s been a yin-yang year: dark and light, grief and joy, exhaustion and renewal, despair and relief.

Let’s review:

Career - Gold Fucking Star.

Until July 18, I thought this was going to be a “Did Not Place” year for career (aka Allovue). The first half of 2015 was rather traumatic; fraught with doubt, fear, desperation, sleeplessness. Everything felt stalled: fundraising, product development, sales. Daily, I would turn the key in the company ignition and hear sputtering. Turn the key, turn the key, turn the key, with increasing desperation. Development wasn’t moving fast enough, sales weren’t closing fast enough, money was burning too fast. This is a recipe for founder madness.

Fundraise press releases are so glamorous: money! growth! progress! Fundraising is the farthest thing from glamorous, and I did a lot of it last year. I started raising a second seed round of a million dollars in September 2014. I closed the round in June 2015. 9 months. Friends of mine made entire humans in that time, and I? I kept my baby alive. Joy! Except. When it takes you 9 months to raise money, a good portion has already been spent by the time you are “done.” Despair.

The week we announced the raise, I went to a startup networking event and someone said, “You got your money, why aren’t you smiling?” I nearly screamed.

In February, I was fairly certain I was going to have to ask my executive team to go off salary to buy a few more months. In preparation, I sold my car to put some cash in my own bank account. To preserve cash, I charged every company expense possible to my personal credit cards (KIDS, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME). By March, I was personally carrying nearly $20K of company expenses. We would figure it out, we would figure it out.

In March, I took inventory of what other personal assets I could sell off. I had already cashed out my teaching pension. I had already sold my car. I was already pimping out my house on AirBNB. I looked inward. Literally. I started exploring options for selling my eggs. Hey, Ivy-League educated and blue-eyed genes can go for upwards of $50K. I submitted an application and informed my investors and advisors that I was ready to start auctioning off body parts. My inbox flooded with new introductions.

In April, an angel investor committed to $500K, keeping my company and progeny intact with a single check. I was standing alone in the ballroom of the Loews Hotel in DC when I got the call. I fell against the wall in a rush of vertigo. Relief.

I had lunch with my CTO a few weeks later and we made a pact to never again put ourselves in the position of being in such dire need for cash. On May the 4th, I wrote this:

I’ve somehow fallen into this trap of thinking that the goal is fundraising. That's not who I am, that's not the company I wanted to build, and that's not the team I hired. I want to get back to where I started: the goal is to build a great company that serves districts, schools, and students. Fundraising is a means to an end, not an end goal in and of itself. I don't know when I forgot that. I still want to build the biggest company we possibly can. I still want this to be the biggest opportunity in education. BUT I also don't want to raise money because our bank account is running on empty. I want to raise when we're really ready, on the best terms possible. That means we need to optimize for revenue right now and fight like hell to break even.

6 months later, almost to the day, we signed a term sheet for our Series A. We did not need the money.

I wish I could impart some grand lesson from this crazy rollercoaster of a year. I wouldn’t particularly recommend a lot of what I did this year. I only endured it because I knew in the depths of my being that, somehow, we would figure it out. But we survived - in fact, are thriving - and for that, I deserve a gold fucking star in the Career Life Olympics this year.

Health - Bronze Star

I think the very fact that I did not completely let myself go this year warrants a bronze star - especially considering all the traveling I did this year. I was on the road nearly 200 days this year, and somehow kept my yoga practice and weight fairly stable. ClassPass helped a lot - for a monthly fee, I can take fitness classes in nearly ever metropolitan area in the country. I’ve taken classes in dozens of studios across the country, and Bikram Yoga Baltimore is still my favorite.

There were weeks where I subsisted almost entirely on Chipotle, which is perhaps an area for improvement (is it, though??)

How do you measure - measure a year? In tacos, burritos, in salsa, in ques-a-dillas…

In one area that I definitely did let myself go was my self-image. Stress makes you feel old. And I was really fucking stressed out this year. I started to feel old. And then, because we are what we think, I started to act old. Recently, I realized that I hadn’t been to a bar on Saturday night since… I could not remember. And what the hell was I wearing? Flannel?? 19-year-old Jessica would have an aneurysm. I spent a lot of weekend nights in 2015 cuddled up with Darwin (my cat), a cup of tea, and my Kindle. And occasionally, that’s lovely. But not every night of every weekend. I’m in the Dominican Republic right now and I feel about 50 years younger than I have all year. And I should probably start acting my age.

Home - Silver Star

Even my poor house had a yin-yang year. In February, in the midst of that bitterly cold winter, my pipes burst. And since February is a big conference season, and I was already in a pit of despair, I really just did not have the time or energy to deal with it. So my house did not have water for a month. I was like a regular pioneer girl, flushing toilets with gallon jugs of bottled water. Thank goodness for my mother. She, like the rational person she is, believed this to be a serious problem and project-managed plumbers and contractors for a month.

Seven months later an AirBNB guest alerted me to the fact that my stove did not work. This reminded me that I had not attempted to use my stove since at least February.

In tacos, in sushi, in Thai food, in Indian takeout…

Then I needed I new roof. And my washing machine broke. And my bank account was very sad looking.

I realize this is sounding like a “Did Not Place” at this point, but I turned it around! For the past few months, I have put real effort into revitalizing my house and giving it some much needed TLC. I worked with a wonderful interior decorator at Su Casa to help me make better use of my living room space, which I had always felt was suboptimal. I sold my dark couches and replaced them with a light sectional that opened up the room. I added some color with upholstered chairs. I fell in love with a big painting by local artist Mateo Blu. I decorated in earnest for the holidays. I eeked out a silver star here at the very last minute.

Spirit - Silver Star

I did a better job acknowledging and prioritizing my emotional wellbeing this year, which is far more than I can say for the ghosts of Life Olympics past. I took vacations! Plural! I spent a lovely long spring weekend in Portugal, and I am spending the new year holiday sunning in the Caribbean. I also planned on spending a weekend in Paris in November, which very sadly coincided with the recent attacks, so I rescheduled my trip for the spring.

For the second year in a row, I met my Goodreads book challenge - and this time, several days ahead of schedule. I did not spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s frantically reading 7 books! I read a lot of fun books this year, finally freeing myself of the kaizen notion that every book I read must result in some improvement. Laughter and pleasure is plenty self-improvement.

I made some pretty major breakthroughs in my singing lessons this year. Here, too, I managed to let go a little. Perhaps I just reached my stress limit with work and couldn’t bother with stressing about my hobbies. It’s fine. It’s fun. Unclench.

Really and truly - I’m so grateful for yoga. It’s my church and my religion, and I got through some rough times in the cry corner this year. It keeps me focused and calm-ish. It’s almost entirely to credit for the fact that I didn’t have a stage 4 meltdown circa February. Nor March. Nor April. Breathe. Remember to breathe. It’s easy, and it’s fun.

My writing got the short shrift this year. Sorry. Something’s gotta give. I posted a lot on Facebook, and that will have to suffice for micro-blogging 2015. A respectable Silver.

Relationships - Did Not Place

I’ll be the first to admit that my so-called love life is rife with humorous anecdotes. But at some point this year, I started to think that perhaps the joke was on me. There is a barely perceptible difference between being able to laugh at yourself, and turning your (love) life into one running joke. As it turns out, there is some importance in being earnest.

The last two years, I have been a total Rose:

Sorry, boo, this is a life raft for one. Because love and lust and romance have a tendency to throw a girl off balance, and I am on a damned LIFE RAFT just trying to SURVIVE, here. So would-be boos were welcome to just chill in my icy waters. You can hold my hand… maybe… from a safe distance.

But now, I’m feeling a little more… buoyant. I have upgraded to a small dinghy that is suitable for recreation.

And there might be room for two.

2016 Life Olympics: On your mark, get set…

[jessgartner]

2014 Life Olympics

The 2014 Life Olympics is my pursuit of stubborn gladness.

Career - Silver Star

The beginning of this year feels like 10 years ago. This time last year, I was still the sole full-time employee of Allovue, which seems totally impossible. I feel like I've been working with my team my whole life. I can't believe how much the company has grown and evolved during the past year. Hiring my team is the best thing I did this year, maybe in my life. They continue to delight and astound me. I can't wait to see what we do together in 2015.

So why silver star this year? I think I've let my work overrun my life too much. I can hardly hold a conversation that isn't about work, and if I do, it's half-assed, because I'm still thinking about work (sincere apologies to everyone with whom I've tried to hold a conversation this year). I've abruptly ended relationships and slowly abandoned almost all other personal interests in the name of work. Mark Suster claims that he seeks out this sort of founder obsession, but I'm not at all convinced that it's healthy. Intellectually, I know that I should not derive all of my joy, purpose, and energy from work, but it's easier said than done. In the coming year, I need to learn how to "turn it off" at times. I'll probably always be someone who is defined by her work, but I can't be totally consumed by it.

Home - Gold Star I will just say this: I finally swallowed my pride and hired a cleaning service and it was one of the best decisions of my life. Even my mother remarked how clean my house looks.

Lesson Learned: achieving wellness in your life doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself. Ask for help. Pay for help. Don't add unnecessary stress to your life.

Relationships - No Star Awarded I feel like I have developed a nice bond with my cat this year - does that count? No? Well, then.

I sucked at relationships all around this year - with friends, romantic partners, family. I have selfishly and ruthlessly prioritized work. I made a half-hearted attempt at dating for a few months, but after dismissing one nice guy after another, I asked myself, "What exactly are you looking for here, Jess? And what are you willing to give?" The answers were, "I have no idea" and "Nothing that requires any sort of emotional commitment or vulnerability because I don't have room for that right now." So. I decided that is not really a fair attitude to bring to the table, and maybe it was time for a little break from the dating world - or, as my grandmother calls it, "a sabbatical." And I have to say, I feel a lot better now that I have removed the (mostly) self-imposed stress of dating. I am clearly in no place to be in a serious relationship right now, and I have finally given myself permission to be single. Since I am a hopeless romantic at heart, I am sure that in time I will be ready to let the right person into my life in a real way. But for now, I'm on sabbatical.

Health - Bronze Star I think I have been more consistently devoted to my Bikram practice this year than ever before. I feel stronger and more resilient as a result - physically and mentally. Bikram definitely overlaps with the spiritual wellness category for me, too. There is such a wonderful community of support at the BYB studio, and the solace I find in the hot room is unparalleled.

I have gotten off the bandwagon in terms of healthy eating. Again, here, I have prioritized work to taking the time to prepare and eat healthful meals. There were more than a few nights that I succumbed to the total cliche of just heating up some ramen. I have also had a few meals consisting solely of peppermint patties and wine. A sugar detox may be due in short order...

Wellness - Silver Star This personal/spiritual wellness category is always my albatross. It seems a bit like cheating to count my Bikram practice in two categories, but it really does a lot for me beyond the physical effects. I have maintained my singing lesson every other week, which is a wonderful Monday evening delight. I've also rededicated myself to reading in a big way recently - especially works of fiction. Reading has been such an integral part of my life, and after months of feeling like a didn't have time to read, I just decided to make some time.  I started getting off the computer earlier at night and working in a good chunk of reading time before bed. My surge in reading coincided with my "dating sabbatical," so I guess you could say I traded men for books. Not mad at it.

Maybe some day, striving for personal wellness won't feel like such a burden. Maybe it will finally achieve its rightful place in the equilibrium of my life.

And 2015? My friend Stephanie has a great philosophy about New Year's Resolutions that I'm adopting. Instead of making a specific resolution like quitting smoking or losing weight, she chooses a theme for the year to apply in all areas of life.

I want 2015 to be the antidote to my outrage fatigue of 2014. And how to combat fatigue?

Invigorate: Give strength or energy to.

Invigorate. It just sounds healthy. It's fresh and tangy and zesty and clean. Just the thing for 2015.