Current.updates #=> February 2022

Starting a new little post I’m calling Current.updates, which is where I can write about what’s new, what’s going well, what’s not going well and anything else I come up with! Thanks for reading this first version!

I went on my first little coffee date! This was a big win for me, I’ve never felt comfortable dating before and so I’m proud of myself for going. We talked for almost 2 hours, it was a nice experience!

I’ve been screencasting a little on some ruby gems I’ve really enjoyed using at work. This is something I’ve wanted to do more of for many many years, so finally taking the time to work on it has been nice. It’s similar feeling in the payoff of a course, but without the complete overhead of authoring a course. I have more ideas for screencasts but I’m also trying to not hyperfixate and burnout.

I’m currently (at the time of writing) procrastinating from writing a proposal for RailsConf 2022, but am planning on taking care of that this week to submit it. I’ve wanted to speak at a conference like RailsConf or RubyConf since I got into programming, so if I’m lucky enough it’ll be really exciting.

Speaking of speaking at conferences… in March I’ll be speaking at SinCityRuby in Las Vegas. 

I’ve been taking voice lessons to help feminize my voice. It’s the part of me that causes me the most discomfort and dysphoria, so I’m glad to be taking steps to work towards finding my new voice. I hope to have found my new voice by April / May 🤞.

At work I’ve let go of a few responsibilities I was previously handling, and while it feels a bit strange to have let them go it’s oddly freeing. The team is fully capable of handling those things without me, but there’s a piece of me who likes to have control over my destiny.

I’ve moved to another project at work, and it’s exciting to be working on a new problem for my brain to think about. It’d make for a great blog post one day. I’m also working with another coworker I haven’t had the chance to work with for a long long time, and it’s great to  be working with them more.

I'm looking forward to a planned sabbatical in May after my three years at my current job.

I’ve been struggling lately to feel like I’ve got a greater purpose than just ‘Senior Developer’ in life. I have a few things I can call as certain… I want to mentor and manage people in the future. I don’t want to just be an individual contributor for my career. I often feel like I’m stagnant in my career growth.

One of my therapists asked me “What would it look like if your self-worth wasn’t so heavily tied with your work?” And I’ve been thinking about it since. I still haven’t come up with an answer for her.

My mental health has had quite a few bad days in the last few months, I got lower than I’ve ever been, to the point I thought I needed to check myself in, I fortunately was able to come out of it myself and didn’t get to the point of calling for help on myself… but I have certainly scared myself. I don’t want to become another datapoint in the statistics about trans people and suicide. 

Anyway, thanks for reading! While I try to generally be positive, I want to share the good, the bad and the ugly, as often in this day on social media people never share the ‘B-side’ of their lives.

~ Andrea