Yeah, thanks, no more please.
For anyone reading this around the time of the publishing of this post, I don’t really need to go into details of why everything was too much over the past year and a half-ish (not to mention we’re not out of the woods yet). But yeah, who knew pandemics could be so bad?
Everything is relative, of course. Our pandemic experience shouldn’t be compared to others, but it wasn’t catastrophic. It was really hard, kindergarten remote, loss of hours of work, remote working during a lockdown isn’t the same as normal remote working, the list goes on and on. But it wasn’t that hard. Although I knew many that caught COVID-19, even some that were “lucky” enough to have long-COVID, no one I knew really well or that was in my family was lost due to this disease.
My small daughter, several members of my family, and myself are all high-risk when put up against any respiratory infection or disease. The constant weight of that stress, mixed with living in an area of CA that doesn’t take science seriously, has been nearly too much to keep going. In spite of my “not so bad” pandemic.
I also felt the strange benefits of my privilege throughout - whether it was last summer’s BLM movement, the tumultuous and disastrous aftermath of the previous idiot’s presidency, and people’s lives being destroyed all around me in all the ways the world we created can during a crisis; meanwhile I was relatively comfortable with no changes in my work-life balance. My company let us work fewer hours due to child care issues without a change in pay. On and on, this feeling I couldn’t describe in detail permeated everything.
Professionally in fact, I thrived during this time. I’ve transitioned from being a senior tech-lead, into management. Something I wouldn’t have wanted even a few years ago. I so enjoyed the mentorship and coaching side of things I thought I could put my hat and try out the full smash. My company luckily doesn’t force people down the management path once they reach a certain stage of seniority, they realize that management is a totally different skillset and needs to be fostered as such. All good things.
I did get a few short stories started, so I think I’ll add a few of those up here because I enjoy writing those more than life updates these days. I would also like to document my journey as a baby manager, so whenever I have something interesting to say I’ll bring it to life here too.
Be safe out there.