Make Or Break

This year was brutal. If there’s an upside to the socio-political turmoil in our country this year, it’s that I was less likely to let things go and I had the energy to stay focused on what mattered.

When you go to bed worried, wake up annoyed, and go through the day generally angry, it doesn’t take much to set you off. That was me this year. I’m getting better at managing the stress. I’m also getting better at picking the hills I want to die on. But my quick temper was good for something.

When I saw something wrong, I jumped in and did something. I wasn’t going to wait for someone else–not this year. Others had it much worse than I did and therefore had more important things to worry about. This lead to some fun and rewarding work for all sorts of projects. I fixed some inaccessibile open source demos. Some of those lead to core changes in their respective libraries. I added a rule in aXe for aria-errormessage. I responded to some CFP’s and also spoke at two conferences. I coded for charities. I mentored. I learned a lot from those experiences.

However, what I’m likely to be most proud of for the next year is how my constant complaining about the state of accessibility helped raise awareness in my daily work. I’m going to start 2018 as the lead developer on a small team creating an accessible pattern library. I’m going to learn so much. I’m in this position because everyone seemed to understand I would complain even more if this project went forward without accessibility in mind. Maybe the year wore them down and broke their will to resist.

It’s been a “make or break” year. I didn’t break.

Happy New Year.