blog/posts/2025-review.mdx

---
title: 2025 Review
date: "2026-01-01"
description: "My reflections on the year 2025: Breakups, Homelabs, Digital Sovereignty, and Grief."
---

# Introduction

So, 2025 has come to an end. It was a year packed with events in both my personal life and my career. Usually, I try to ensure every year is better than the last, but to be honest, 2025 was an awful year for me.

The biggest disruptor was my fiancée leaving me right after Valentine's Day. That was terrible, and I still feel the emotional impact of it today. It sucks; I don't recommend it. Later in the year, in October, I tried to get back out there. I went on two dates, but unfortunately, I was ghosted after the second one. I also don't recommend that feeling.

It felt like a bulldozer came through just as everything was coming together—me graduating, her graduating, and me getting back to doing what I love most. I was ready for that next chapter, and then everything broke.

## Homelab Distraction

Coincidentally, a few days before the breakup, I bought a second-hand PC to start self-hosting. I was tired of paying for the VPS I'd had since 2021.

I started with a "beast"—an Intel i5 from 2011/2012 with 12 GiB of RAM and a 4 TiB HDD. I threw Debian on it for about 200 PLN, and honestly, I was pretty satisfied. But then, in March, I bought a **4K projector**, which was arguably the best purchase of the year. It transformed my bedroom into a cinema. However, the old PC couldn't handle the media transcoding, so I had to upgrade.

In July, I bought a MiniPC (Intel N100, 16 GiB RAM). The N100 handles video acceleration perfectly thanks to the integrated GPU. I installed Proxmox, created LXC containers for Docker, Jellyfin, and Minecraft, and called it a day. **Fun fact: if you are reading this, this blog is hosted on that MiniPC.**

I also bought a second-hand Synology NAS with 16 TiB of total storage for ~2000 PLN. This allowed me to cut off unnecessary subscriptions. Now, I consume the media I want, whenever I want.

### My Self-Hosting Stack

My stack has grown quite a bit. I use **Traefik** as my reverse proxy (switched from Nginx; I find Traefik much easier to use with Docker). Here is the full list running on my hardware:

- **Docker** (obviously)
- **Traefik**
- **Jellyfin** (Media server)
- **The \*Arr Suite:** Bazarr, Prowlarr, Radarr, Sonarr
- **Downloader:** Deluge
- **Youtube DL:** Metube
- **Music:** Navidrome, Beets.io
- **Photos:** Immich (I plan to replace this with my own **K-Photos** when I finish developing it)
- **Documents:** Paperless (A godsend since I started my own company; it stores my invoices and important docs)
- **Code & Work:** Gitea, Docker Registry, Portainer
- **Collaboration:** Docmost, Penpot
- **Social & Web:** WordPress (freelance work), Thoughts (my social platform), Rick and Morty Tournament, Shareyourass.com (funny project coming soon)
- **Tools:** K-Notes, K-QR, K-Tuner, Actual Budget, Webtrees (Genealogy), Vaultwarden (finally using a password manager!), ntfy, NATS.
- **Game Servers:** Minecraft Server, Andrzejki (party apps).

## Career, Education & The Rust Rebellion

In July, I finally secured my **Bachelor of Science degree in Bioinformatics**. After four long years, I was done. Unfortunately, I didn't get into the Master's program in Computer Science at my alma mater this time around. My goal is to get a PhD one day, so I’m not giving up—I hope to get in during the 2026 cycle.

In June, I also officially started my own company (_JDG - jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza_).

Career-wise, I moved back into backend development. No longer writing Angular (hurray!), and no more worrying about padding or margins. However, I had to change teams in March, which was another massive stressor right after the breakup.

I’m currently building web services in Python. I’m not 100% satisfied with the stack because I would love to work with Rust, but that’s not possible right now. I actually tried to stage a small "anarchy movement." I wrote a microservice that converts images entirely in Rust. My thought process was: _if I write it and deploy it, the management will just have to accept it._

It was a long shot. Just as I was ready for deployment, I got invited to a call and was told that, unfortunately, we couldn't ship it because nobody else knew Rust. I had to rewrite it in Python. But give me a few years—I'll become an architect, and then I'll rewrite everything in Rust! :D

Despite the setbacks, I feel I made real progress in my programming skills this year. I read some smart books and focused on software architecture. I feel on track to becoming a solid Software Architect.

## The Builder's Year: Apps, Games & Creativity

Since I needed distractions, I coded _a lot_ and started preserving memories.

**1. Game Development**

- **Mr. Brick Adventures:** In my 2025 roadmap, I said I wanted to release this. I worked on it in May and August, but with the breakup and the dark winter nights, motivation died. The code is done, but it lacks levels and polish.
- **BrickFramework:** I accomplished a lot here. I created an engine-agnostic FPS codebase in C# that contains all game logic, AI, and entities but _no_ rendering or physics. I wrote a proof-of-concept in Godot (because it supports C# 12). The idea is data-driven code that doesn't care if it's running on Unity, Godot, VR, or Console. I just write glue code for the engine, plug in physics, and it works.
- **Game Jams:** My friends and I started our own Game Jam tradition. We had four editions, and I participated in three (two Unity games, one Godot). The goal wasn't perfection, just shipping.

**2. K-Suite & Apps**
I built several apps for my "Personal Universe" idea (**[K-Suite](https://gabrielkaszewski.dev/k-suite)**):

- **K-Notes:** A Google Keep replica.
- **K-Tuner:** A web tuner for ukulele and guitar. I wrote this because I wanted to play guitar at 2 AM, my physical tuner died, and no stores were open. So, naturally, I coded a solution.
- **Thoughts:** I challenged myself to recreate a social platform idea in one weekend. I deployed it, though it still needs ActivityPub integration.
- **Party Apps:** For _Andrzejki_ in November, I hosted my first party since 2022. I built custom web apps for traditional party games and put QR codes around the apartment. My friends loved it.

**3. Open Source & Preservation**

- I published my first public crate: `loco-keycloak-auth` and a CLI tool `codebase-to-prompt`.
- **Genealogy:** After graduation, I went down a rabbit hole of preserving family memories. I digitized old VHS tapes and photos from CDs, storing everything on my NAS and organizing it with Webtrees.

## Reflections on Life, Grief, and the End of the List

The darkness of the year's end brought heavy thoughts. Not only was I alone, but for the first time since my dad died 13 years ago, I started to really miss him.

He died of cancer when I was 10. We were best friends. I just wish that if one day I become a dad, I will be at worst just like him, and at best, even better.

I got over the fact pretty quickly as a kid; life moved on. I imagined my future and set my goals. But now that those goals are almost done—I got the degree, I have the dream job—I started reflecting more. The next step was supposed to be marriage, but that went out the window.

Sitting in my apartment alone, in front of my two monitors, I found myself thinking about my childhood. We could travel now. We could do things we couldn't afford back then. I wondered: _Would he be proud of me? Of what I have achieved?_

Then, a specific thought hit me: **I have now lived longer without him than with him.** (10 years with him, 13 without).

I have to admit, I have reached a point in my life where I am no longer excited. I feel like I have realized most things I ever wanted that were dependent on me. I am financially stable, I have the degree. Next year I plan to buy my own apartment (aiming for Dec 2026), and then what? Nothing. Life will look mostly the same. My bucket list has come to an end.

## Healing & Looking Ahead

To process these feelings, I turned to writing. By the end of November, I started a personal book to document my emotions. It was deeply therapeutic. I got hooked; in just one month, I wrote **130,000 words** (around 380 pages), and the story isn't over yet.

I also focused on small joys:

- **Music:** I bought a keyboard in December and started learning to play.
- **Gym:** I finally got back to the gym in December. I put my training plan into K-Notes, which is such a nice feeling—using your own software to improve your life.
- **Travel:** After Christmas, I visited Stockholm with my cousin. We saw the Mojang Studio offices (unfortunately closed on Saturday, so I couldn't go in).

Life sometimes sucks, but I will see what the incoming years will bring.