Today I turn 34.

I knew this year was going to be a year of growth for me. I didn't expect how much growth though.

This year turned out to be a lot about being okay with stillness while still moving forward. Rather than being in a boat powered by a V8 engine I needed to be okay with riding the river current and using the paddles.

You see, I'm prone to rushing things. Probably, why I love F1 and in a different life I'd be a racer. Aside from my personal growth that I could feel coming and happening what I didn't see happening was what recently happened between me and my best friend.

We've been working on the Hike app for two years now. It went through a couple major iterations and we set a beta release date for Late March 2023. Its March and Hike will sadly not be released within 30 days.

Almost 2 years ago I was given a calling by God to build something to help families. That's all I knew at the time. We set out to build a different kind of journaling app. One that would be more designed around the group, family aspect with unique all-in-one approaches that included public feelings and needs along with easily shareable private thoughts. This app would create insights and many relational data points based on everyone in the family's usage. No recommendations, just points of interest or any patterns.

With under 2 months remaining to meet the Late March beta release date, all that was left were the permissions and sharing capabilities within the app. That's it.

And "that's it" would be the second most unexpected experience of my lifetime. The first being my ex-wife's ask for a divorce. The second being my best friend all of the sudden having zero communication with zero explanation. Oh the irony.

But, I know Hike must continue with or without him.

In a matter of 3 weeks I've grown even more to stand firm in my calling, trusting in the process and timing even more, and that extending the timeline is okay.

While I feel extending the timeline has annoyingly been the pattern of my life, I truly believe the best things are coming when they're ready for me. God's got something special for me. I just know it. And He wants me to have zero control over its timing.

Which is fucking hard.

This year is about FOCUS for me. And that's become even more clear after what happened to me at the start of February.

I've been blessed to be self-employed and do the design work I love for a team that supports me and pushes me to be better and likewise for them. It will be 1 year in October at One Branding that's going through a redesign to set ourselves up even stronger as a website design and development house.

Hike remains a daily thought for me. "What's next?" The beautiful thing is that God has conveniently surrounded me with great people in great situations to help Hike turn into something that helps so many families. I don't know yet any specifics yet. I do know it will happen.

It has to happen. Everything up until this moment has prepared me for something even greater. For a tool or tools to help people manage their feelings and get through any conflict with any relationship that's important to them. More than ever our world needs something like this.

So, while this year felt similar to when I turned 32 but was very different.

I know what I need to do. I know what I need to focus on. And I have the right people supporting, loving, and being there for me while I do my best to be there for them too.