That seems to be the big realization of my life lately: things aren’t being counted so much in years as in decades. My best friend and I have been friends for TWO decades now. I started high school a decade ago, which is when I met one of my other closest friends. Everything is in decades. 2.5 of them so far.

I was just reading my 24th birthday post as a point of reference and it’s really crazy to think back on how much has changed since I wrote it.

For starters, I moved from San Francisco to Brooklyn. I left Flickr behind for Etsy. It was a really tough decision but one I am still SO happy I made. I LOVE living back on the east coast. It’s brought me closer to all of my friends and family and I’m just enjoying life so much more here. It’s odd because I never even considered New York as a place to move after college. It was San Francisco all the way. I think living there for those 18 months really pointed out to me how much of a New Yorker I really am (…despite growing up in NJ).

Work-wise I’ve really enjoyed working at Etsy. I’ve learned a LOT – especially (and somewhat strangely considering I’m a Product Manager and not a developer) on the technical side of things. Actually to be completely truthful, I think I’ve learned the most in the non-web-related areas: things like letterpress, crochet, screenprinting, and even a bit about merchandising, internationalization, and putting on amazing events – just by sitting near some incredibly talented and smart people.

Then there’s Accompl.sh which has been my sidekick for the last few years but which has really come to serve as the place I go to experiment and learn, to continue to grow my development skills, and just generally try to MAKE SOMETHING. I love nothing more than making things – especially things that other people use, enjoy, and gain some value from. Accompl.sh has let me have a hand in helping people achieve nearly 30,000 of their goals and this is still only just the beginning. It’s something I think I’ll be proud of for the rest of my life.

My personal life has changed pretty dramatically since I moved back East. In addition to being closer to family and being able to develop relationships where I didn’t quite have them before, I’ve also been able to collect a group of friends who are much closer to me in age and in interests. Not that I didn’t love my San Francisco friends – I wouldn’t trade them for anything – but there’s something about being able to grab dinner with someone your own age who’s going through similar things that’s just incredibly inspiring/ comforting/ fun/ invaluable all at the same time. Being so close to where I grew up means I get to catch up with Erin (my best friend of 20 years now), my amazing friends from grammar school and high school, and, to top it off, friends from college and even SF who’ve settled in the New York area. For once in my life I’m generally out after work more times each week than I’m home. And it’s amazing. (Well, save for Tuesday nights. It’s basically guaranteed that I’m at home watching Glee on a Tuesday night. Everything stops for Glee).

Earlier, I was thinking back on this day last year and while I can definitively say that this year wasn’t even REMOTELY as trying as the year leading up to my 24th birthday (I distinctly remember locking myself in the bathroom at work and bawling my eyes out on my birthday. It was a rough day). This year definitely started out a bit rocky. We had to put Buddy down soon after I moved back which left me a bit out of sorts for a while. Luckily I had Penny to keep me company and to soften the blow. She’s inherited a lot of his favorite toys. It’s still a bit strange to see them lying around my house. And to go back to my mom’s when he’s not there.

Adventure-wise, I do have to admit that this year was pretty lacking in the traditional sense, unless you consider the whole packing up and moving back across the country to start a new job in the middle of a few blizzards an adventure. I took my first ever real vacation, got to go back to SXSW, and got to head back to Cornell for another career fair and some Ithaca adventures (which, of course, involve apple cider donuts). I also finally got to try skiing for the first time (thanks to an Etsy offsite (Etski.. of course)), got to see Wicked for the first time (which I’ve wanted to see since I was in high school), filed for my first LLC (for Accompl.sh), and I chopped off and donated 11″ of hair. I also experienced my first earthquake and real hurricane. I suppose those could be considered adventures.

On the whole though, this year has been almost entirely positive. New city, new friends, reigniting relationships with old friends, new job, new outlook on life in general. It’s all somehow managed to magically work out. The icing on the cake is that recently I’ve started to feel like a “New Yorker” – a local. Someone who doesn’t need subway maps, who has favorite places to go hang out with friends, and who thinks taking a subway for anything under a 15-20 block walk is a bit ridiculous unless there’s some seriously crazy weather outside. And even then you should just suck it up and realize you’re a moron for not bringing an umbrella. I always thought that this lifestyle wasn’t really for me, but I really do love it!

The question I’ve been asking a lot lately is where do I see myself in a year (and 5 years and 10 years) and to be honest: I HAVE NO IDEA. I have a couple of ideas of what would comprise happiness and a sense of success in the next year or two, but a big “plan” for the next bit of my life? No clue.

I know that this year laid the foundation for a lot of what I’d like to do in the future. If I were a sports team it would have been considered a rebuilding year. I feel like I’m now starting to hit my stride as a “grown up” and I hope that will continue next year.

So, now for the requisite aspirational predictions for what I’d like to see in my 26th birthday post:
I hope I’ll either be working at a very small startup (as one of the first 5 people), have started to work on Accompl.sh full time, or have made some serious career progress at Etsy.
I hope I’ll have found a neighborhood that I’d like to call “home” for the longer term.
I hope I’ll have found a really great guy who doesn’t mind that I’m slightly nerdy, accepts my obsession with Glee, and thinks my friends are awesome.
I hope I’ll have had some sort of travel adventure – preferably outside of the US, but anywhere new would do.

Mostly, I hope I’m as happy with how things have unfolded as I am now. Maybe even more. I really couldn’t have asked for much more this year. Things happened and they were all in a generally positive and forward direction. Nothing OUTSTANDING really happened – no trips to Europe, college graduations, births, deaths, etc, but it’d be crazy to expect that out of every single year.

This year got me back on track. It’s exactly what I needed. Now I’m ready to leave it behind and start making more directed moves forward. Twenty-four was the opening act for 25. Now it’s 25′s time to take the ball and run. Here we go!

Where to begin?

Twenty-three was really all about settling into adulthood. I’ve now been out of college for about 1.5 years and I’ve lived on my own in San Francisco for just over a year of that. That fact alone has been the impetus for most of the changes in my life. I’ve spent this last year trying to carve out a new “home.” To be honest, “home” is still on the east coast for me, but more and more I’m building a life for myself here. It takes time. (Aside: Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb” just came on my iTunes random shuffle…cheeztasticly appropriate for this post).

Adulthood sort of smacked me in the face this year. There was no easing into it. I was totally prepared for things like needing to pay my own bills, living on my own, having a job, etc. etc. but the other parts that come with being an adult? Things like death? I don’t think anyone is ever ready for those.

That’s been the real driver of change this year. It’s the thing that changed me as a person in the blink of an eye.

To rewind: just after I moved out here in August of ’09, my grandmother started to get sick. She was in and out of the hospital for a while, including on Thanksgiving. And that would be the last time I saw her. She died on 12/21 – a few hours before my flight back to NJ for Christmas.

I was essentially raised by two women: my mother and my grandmother. I was equally close to both of them and after my grandfather passed away my sophomore year of high school, it was just the three of us.

Needless to say, that was the lowest of lows for 23 – if not for my entire life. Not only did I need to figure out adulthood, but I needed to do it having just lost 50% of my support system. I lost half of my sounding board for all of the big decisions that I would have to make. And half of my cheering section for when things went well.

The good news is that when your low point is that low, everything else looks peachy.

Just before my gram passed away, I got a dog (who would be my Christmas gift from my gram). I named her Penelope Pixel Cheerio Vargas. Most know her as Penny. Penny has kept me company through all of this and has a pretty cushy life if I do say so myself. As I write this she’s napping upstairs. She’s not one for mornings.

Also keeping me company through all of this (though in a much geekier way) has been 101in365. It’s become a huge part of my life and I’m really enjoying watching it grow, dusting off whatever coding abilities I had before, and learning so much along the way.

I’ve also had a lot of adventures and new experiences: I went to Taiwan for a second time, back to Cornell twice (those last 3 trips were work-related), and I FINALLY got to go to Austin, TX for SxSW Interactive! Strangely, this year was all about trying new foods, too. I think it started out with the Taiwan trips, but since I moved to San Francisco I’ve changed my eating preferences almost entirely. (And for my friends who knew my previous eating preferences, I said ALMOST!) Dim Sum is now one of my favorite things to eat and I can’t even remember the last time I had spaghetti! I also tried things that I never thought I would – things like going to a shooting range. (another work trip… a weird one, I know!)

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that I’m finally back to Flickr now. That was a much-needed change since my previous project was basically sucking the life out of me. And let’s face it, it’s where I’m supposed to be in the grand scheme of Yahoo! things. That’s also changed my life pretty dramatically in that I no longer have a ridiculous commute down to Sunnyvale. I can walk, take the muni, or if the mood strikes, ride my Vespa to work. Not to mention the team is amazing and I love getting to spend time with them every day.

So all in all, I’m actually still not sure where this year netted out. In the big-picture view, learning, growth, etc. aren’t really ever bad things, but when bad things force that learning and growth it’s tough to see the positive side of it. I’m still working on that.

I do know that I’m at a very different point in my life than I was this time last year. For better or for worse. And I hope that 23 was the lowest it’ll get for a while, because I’m really looking forward to 24. I have high hopes for this next year. Big dreams, huge ambitions, and more motivation than ever. I don’t want next year’s entry to be like this. I want it full of amazing adventures, friends, family, progress, good change, and real happiness. And it will be. Because I’m going to make it so.

So here’s to turning the page. Starting fresh. Moving forward. Kicking Ass. See ya, 23. It’s been real.

I turned 23 today. It was different than any birthday I’ve had in the past. I wasn’t at home. I wasn’t with my friends. I wasn’t cramming for and then taking an Econ exam. I wasn’t counting down the hours until Fall Break or Columbus Day weekend. It actually kind of snuck up on me this year. Like I said, it’s been a crazy last few weeks!

I knew 22 was going to be an incredibly eventful year for me. What I couldn’t have known, however, was just how amazing this year would turn out to be.

I’ve experienced things and had opportunities I couldn’t have dreamed of this time last year. I survived my last year of college, pushed myself to succeed in classes that I thought I was guaranteed to fail, spent countless hours turning the Photo department into something we could be proud of, made some amazing friends, and graduated from college. Those were all pretty predictable, sure, but then there were the things that made this year REALLY cool: I had photos published in the New York Times, backpacked around Europe for 6 weeks, tried things that still shock me – like paragliding in the Swiss Alps. I moved to San Francisco, started a job that is turning out to be exactly what I wanted, and to top it all off, I spent the last week on my first business trip – to Taiwan!

Those are just the things I can enumerate. There are the things you can’t count on your fingers like the friends I’ve made, the nights out with those friends that I’ll remember forever, the days where everything felt like it was going just perfectly. Sure there were some bad days here or there, but why dwell on that? I learned a lot and grew even more and that’s really all you can ask for. Twenty-two was a great year and I hope that 23 will bring even just a few of those amazing experiences.

I’ve been incredibly lucky this past year and I want to thank those of you who were along for the ride with me. My friends mean the world to me and I hope you all know that. Here’s to another great year of friendship, adventures, trials and tribulations, but most of all – happiness.