Yesterday watching the Pixel 9 launch event was a very confusing, sad, and weird experience for me.

Since before the first Pixel launched, I’ve always been on the edge of my seat, solidly riding the hype train of Google. There’s always been so much magic, community, and beauty surrounding Pixel and Google. And, in a lot of ways there still is. I still 1000% prefer Android over other OSs, I think Apple’s design of hardware and FM software as stale and boring as f*ck, and there’s still a lot of things about Google that I think are still valuable. But since before the Pixel 8 launch last year it’s definitely been on a steady decline.

There’s lots of reasons for this, which I probably won’t explore right now. The point is, much of the magic is gone and it’s left me confused, sad, and unsure of a lot of things actually. It’s not just Google, but after the event ended and I felt so bored and disappointed with all of it, I was definitely sad and confused. Cuz so much of my life and identity for so long has been wrapped up in Google and being a Pixel and Android Superfan. I want to believe this is a positive moment and that I’ll be able to create something even more beautiful for my life, but it’s difficult when I’ve torn apart so much of what my identity used to be over the last few years.

It’s not just Google and Pixel Superfan stuff, but almost everything in my life I’ve been intentionally challenging, questioning, and trying to change. I love it, and I think it’s so valuable, but it’s also incredibly exhausting. Especially when after all the energy I’ve devoted and everything I’ve been creating, it still feels like I’m so lost. 😞

I want to have a solid identity, but I don’t want it to be the one I had before either. Cuz even though that identity feels like it was solid, I know it wasn’t. It was just maybe a bit more solid than this sea of confusion I feel I’m in right now. But it’s definitely not something I want to “go back to”. I don’t believe in going back, because I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to actually go back. They might rediscover and reimplement similar things that they had before, but there’s no way to completely go back. Plus I don’t think there’s value in that. Why look back and try to be someone you were before when you can be someone different in the future? Sure, you can still incorporate pieces or elements from the past that you found valuable, but they’ll be mixed in with all the new goodies you’ve created since then to make someone completely new and beautiful in other ways. So, why would you want to go back when the person you can make now is wonderful?

There’s quite a few things I think I want and that I’ve been trying to embrace fully for years, but sometimes it feels like no matter how much I try to invest deeply in them, they’re still so elusive and difficult to build into my core self. I want to believe it’s possible, but the more I get stuck, the less possible it all seems.