“Now” – the magic moment in time which will never happen twice in your life. It’s shared by billions of people on Earth but still unique for every individual. In this post, I want to capture my very own “now” and share it with you. It’s all about me and my life, so proceed reading if you are interested in day-to-day details. As always, it’s ok to skip if you are not at that place now.

I’ve heard about the idea of “now” page from my blogging group fellows and liked it a lot but was putting aside for a while to focus on writing about leadership, software development and books. I’m at the end of the year and sort of trying to slow down a bit after a long, challenging and eventful year. That in my opinion makes a good timing for “now” post. So where I am now?

I am at my home now (the rented apartment at the northern part of Moscow), in my office (cozy corner in the living room), writing in the dark room (it’s less than 5pm, but already dark). 

The Christmas tree is all set up and lights are blinking to remind about the upcoming New Year. There are still three days of work left before the holidays, but the holiday mood is already there. I probably need to explain a bit the context specific for Russia and some other countries. Christmas is celebrated on Jan 7th, that’s why I’m not away from keyboard yet as most of my colleagues, and New Year’s Eve kicks-off a holiday season with big presents exchange happening on the New Year night.

That Christmas/New Year mood though has a bittersweet flavor this time. My daughter has got sick couple of days ago and there is not that much emotional energy left to party and celebrate. Anyway, I’m looking forward to it as a very needed break to refill my tank and jump into exciting 2022. There is still enough time for my kid to recover and for us to get prepared for a little family party.

My wife and I had a very productive year, learned a lot and have enough moments to remember. We both miss trips, but 2022 looks more promising in that regard, despite all the additional risks and unexpected changes which have been appearing since COVID times the beginning of 2020.

My work at Automattic has been an amazing adventure this year. I’m proud of what we achieved with the company as well as with teams I work closely. WooCommerce Payments has become available in 18 countries and got a ton of new features, it’s powering thousands of online stores and is helping merchants to sell their great products all over the world! It’s incredible to be part of that journey and share it with such wonderful people and professionals. There are ambitious plans for 2022, but I won’t share them here, you’ll find out yourselves either by following my or WooCommerce Payments’s updates.

I’m glad that I started writing and sharing my thoughts with people a few months ago. It’s not easy sometimes and far from ideal, but I’m happy with consistency since the beginning of the blogging experiment.

Wellbeing has become important to me recently. I started to focus more on this part of my life as well as continuing to care about other’s comfort. Thinking is not doing though, so the “doing” step needs to be improved in 2022 😀

Pausing here for now to spend some time with my family, bye!