Settling
Why Kant I Be You? by Laura Jane Grace
Feel the distance collaspe I know the in between Are you held in the grip? Lost somewhere in the scene
It's a different place and mostly better place now.
It didn't happen over night. It was a long, drawn out process with a lot of rapid change. What's that look like?
Knowing Better
After three years, I stopped caring about being new. New to the industry, new to the role, new to… well, working at all. I should've done that earlier, but it's a good change. I trust my gut a lot more now, and I am going to try avoiding sitting in silence and wondering “wait, but why?". It's weird make it this explicit, but this isn't about arrogance. In fact, I would say this is a pretty one-sided change. I don't think I always know what's right or the best answer. What I definitely now know is when something's wrong. It smells bad. It looks out of place. It doesn't fit in.
Imagine a falling Tetris piece. There's sometimes a correct move. There's often many good moves. There's always a bad move. Just call it out and move on, you've played enough to know better by now.
This is a pretty marked change for me. The industry I work in (aerospace) is often characterized by it's near-reverence for things that happened 30 or 40 years ago. I've been at a startup for three years and have made some amazing things happen. If this is going to survive into a company, it can't become an aerospace company like that. It has to stay better than that. Keep calling it out, keep keeping it real, keep on keeping on.
Moving Out
I got my own place. It's fantastic. It's not everything I ever wanted (I can be greedy), but it is damn nice. I think I was pretty long overdue for something like this, but I kept putting it off for financial reasons. It's not easy to justify in San Francisco. Getting it required doing some pretty aggresive negotiating, but hey, have to talk advantage of a pandemic somehow.
I've never had my own place, which is kind of wild to think about. Bunkbeds in a shared room, dorms, tight apartments with people, more of the same on loop. I've had something like 14 addresses in the last 10 years and each time, there's been someone else. I did choose to live with those people almost every time (and the times I didn't, boy did I regret it), so I shouldn't complain that much.
Having the freedom to just come home and do whatever I want is amazing. I don't worry about who is doing what at what hour or where. In a pandemic, there's just a massive amount of mental burden too. Maintaining your own internal safety guidelines is tough, but then trying to keep everyone sane and comfortable is super difficult. I barely can handle it at the office, but dealing with it at home too was too much.
People rave about a home-cooked meal, but I think people should really rave about a home-furnished place. It's awesome knowing the full history of everything in here. Going from a few rooms of blank walls to an actual home took me a few weeks - couch just arrived today - but now it's really there.
Five Figures
I hit a personal massive financial milestone this week: my net worth is five figures, down from six. It's trending up, meaning of course, stil negative. Still, I am going to take the win on dropping a figure. It's a neat line in the sand from “nauseatingly bad” to “merely dang painful”. As I learned in March, this could change pretty rapidly at any point (thanks stock markets), but overall it's not likely going to change that dramatically for awhile. There's still a massive amount of money to pay, but we're getting there. We are getting there.
Lastly, thanks to the few folks who reached out after reading the last one. That was a dark and shitty valley after stumbling and falling down a deep slope all summer long. I often feel like my blog is the opposite of social media - you only get the lows. I assure you there have been highs, some of the highest highs. As a few fun times:
- Qualifying TWO. FUCKING. RADIOS.
- The weather in LA is nice this time of year
- Starting reading books again