A letter to my son at three weeks old

Dear James,

You were born on June 12^th, 2016 at 2:39am. I asked you to be born at that time and you listened. I had no idea the toll your birth would take on me. Not in labor, which is what I prepared for, but in my life. It wasn't the impact I thought it would have. I wrote a blog post a couple months ago that I never posted about my worries. I was afraid of not being as good at work. I was afraid that I would lose myself and all the things I loved and I would blame you. You have taken none of these things from me. While I'm not back at work yet, I've already found myself thinking about it and having new ideas and feeling energized to return. I'm going to miss these days with you, but the truth is that I feel like a few quality minutes together are as good as one day where I'm feeling trapped and bored. I love the late night feedings, except when I'm tired. I love watching you learn new things. I also love my job and the career I've built for myself. I love it more because you exist. I spend my days writing code to helping workers' voices be heard. I want to do this all the more because any one of these workers could be you. I look at you, James, a white man growing up relatively affluently in the US and I know you could be anyone. You could be anyone and I would love you the same. It's funny because when other people see your picture or meet you they say, “What a perfect baby!” or “Wow, he is cute!” and I feel proud but I also think, I hope every mother gets to hear this about her child. Because when I look at you James, I think you're special and I don't. I don't think you're special for being cute, for being healthy (which we now know you are after your NICU stay), for being white, for being male, or for being anyone but yourself. You are my child and I love you for being in my life. I love you for the way your father lit up when he first saw you. I love you for the joy on the faces of my parents, in laws, and siblings when they met you. Even if I didn't get to see it, I love you for the joy the people I love felt knowing you were in the world. I try not to overshare your picture because I would hate to foist it on someone who didn't want to see it. I am hesitant in how I post about you on social media because I don't know who is reading my posts and I want to protect you.

Two days into your life, you swallowed milk wrong and started gasping for air. The hospital staff took you away and I believed they would return telling me you died. I also thought it was my fault. They came back and explained this happens sometimes when babies are learning to eat and that you had recovered on your own, as all they'd done is put you on a warmer. You started your NICU stay that day and after testing you for inflammation, they announced they were keeping you for seven days to have you on antibiotics. Honestly, I feel I should have been upset but I was on some level relieved. I hated missing those days, but I was scared I wasn't the best caregiver for you. I felt grateful that someone else would be responsible for keeping you alive. It felt like a gift. I got to visit you and enjoy you and learn from the nurses how to take care of you. I started feeling joyful at the idea that other people could take care of you, as I realized it would mean I could go back to work but come home every day to you. By the time you came home, I had learned the gift was different than I thought. While you were in the NICU I had been triggered by a lot of family, personal, and hospital dynamics and my anxiety level was higher than ever. I had to get on short-term medication—something I'd always avoided—and saw my therapist for an extra session. When you came home, I felt even more protective of you and of myself than before. I realized that of course my first job is to keep you alive, but after that I have a lot of other responsibilities to you, to myself, and to your father. I owe it to you to protect your emotions, but only as much as I can. If there is nothing I can do, I owe it to you to walk away, maybe just for a few minutes, maybe until you need me. I owe it to myself to take care of my needs and to make sure your father and you, as you are able to understand, know what they are. I owe it to your father to help him meet his needs, but not at the expense of my own. That is how we will become a family that can do the hard things we need to do. I'm not sure what all of those things are yet, but I've realized doing hard, worthwhile things is important to me. The worthwhile part is important, as I don't want to be a family that does hard, pointless things.

James, I'm not sure when you'll be able to understand all this. But know, that your mother is so glad she has you in her life. I had my doubts during pregnancy but I don't doubt my decision to have you anymore. I also don't doubt my decision to return to work, or to be a software developer, or to work at LaborVoices. I love the life I've built and I love it more because now I have you in it. I left social work, I learned to code, so that I could have a meaningful career and have you and it was the right decision. I wish everyone had what I have—a life they want. I'm debating whether to post this to my blog because it's very personal for me, though probably not for you yet. I feel like so far in your life, you've done nothing but share your joy with others. So many NICU nurses told me how much they loved you. And yet, for me, sharing joy terrifies me. I don't want anyone to crush it, because I believe it's fragile and tender. I look at you, though, and wonder if it isn't a strong force, something that can't be killed.

Love,

Mom

Editor Practice

The last year of my life has been one of major transition. I've just moved out of the city I've lived longest of anywhere in my life (seven years!). I didn't move far but making that decision felt huge. Within the past six months, I got married and promptly convinced my husband to adopt the world's cutest cat, changed jobs, and then decided to buy this house. It's no wonder that my attention to coding has slipped. (Even now, our cat Dolly is perched in my lap, occasionally scrambling to block my keyboard). However, using the philosophy that got me to learn to code in the first place, this week I remembered that it's never too late to start again. 

As is typical for my self-directed coding sessions, I began by playing around with a few old code bases before settling on starting a new project, one I've had in the back of my mind for a long time. Of course, as soon as I had created the rails project and went to edit it, my usual text editor crashed. I decided to return to using vim, a tool I had developed some proficiency with in my last job. Curious about how to use vim as a full IDE, I went looking for resources and found Janus. As I was reading the documentation, I decided to complete vim's built-in tutorial (which can be reached by typing vimtutor in the terminal). Previously, any skills I'd picked up had been as needed and through specific Googling, but it was nice to run through a structured set of commands, and I was shocked by what vim could do. Since then I've begun working on my personal project with MacVim and enjoyed the process, even though there's some adjustment. This blog post was helpful in outlining some of what I'd learned on my own, and pointing me in the direction of new plugins to install. I highly recommend Vim, even if just so you can get the reaction I did once at a code sprint ("You use vim?!?")...though not sure if that was really compliment.

Like Myself

It’s been a long time since I posted anything to this blog, so I doubt anyone is reading it (if they ever were). However, I woke up early this morning, and found myself re-reading old entries. Since my last post, I’ve received some criticism that made me afraid to return to writing, but I actually found myself proud of my old posts. Yes, they were a little cheesy, but one thing I learned as a social worker is that there’s a real place for cheesiness, especially when you mean it. And I did mean every word I wrote in those posts.
I could recap the last year, but instead I’ll just say that I have no regrets about the choices I made. While I loved the people I worked with in my past career, I believe I made the right choice for myself and for them to leave. I can support myself and others so much better now that I make choices to do work that makes me happy. While of course there are still time where work is tedious or people frustrate me, I love what I do. The moment when a complex problem becomes clear feels just as good as it did when I first learning. And I’ve found a new joy in taking complex and difficult to understand code, and re-writing it to be easier to update and fix.
Recently, bootcamps like the one I did have become more popular and accessible, so a lot of people ask me if they should do one. Rather than give advice, I usually ask: do you like to code? Because if you don’t enjoy coding, don’t do a bootcamp.
More importantly, only do it if you really want a job as a developer. If you don’t , find something you do love and find a way to balance your love of it with making money. That’s certainly not very easy, but it’s a lot easier than trying to make money doing something you hate. I am so much happier doing work that fits my personality than trying to make my personality fit my work. But the really hard part is that it means I have to show people my personality, and know what that is. And that’s terrifying.
It is funny though the little ways people surprise you when you tell the truth. A couple months ago, I went to coffee with one of the owners of my company, Social Driver. He asked me what I missed most about being a social worker. I told him about the white board I used to have in my office where I posted weekly inspirational quotes, and how much they meant to me and to some of my clients. The next day at our all staff meeting there was a package in the corner. During the time in our meeting that we call Victory Lap, where we acknowledge special effort over the last week, the owner mentioned me and said how much my story had touched him, and then presented me with a white board! I almost cried.
I recently posted this quote:

I feel like it sums up what I'm working on now.

Goodbye California

According to the Virgin America seat screen in front of me, I am writing this at 35,106 feet, and the little red plane on the Google map puts me somewhere in the middle of Utah. Ever since we started to taxi, this Jolie Holland song has been running through my head:

At least it was just running through my head until I decided to actually listen to it as I am now doing. I’ve loved that song for a long time and never thought it would apply so literally to me, in that I am leaving California and feel joyful about it, which is how the song feels to me.

I am really happy to be going to the home I have made for myself back in DC. It’s hard to even imagine how great it will be to return to my own apartment and be in my space again, and see all the people I have missed.

Of course, I am especially happy because I am accepting a job back home that I think will be really good for me. It is scary to write about because I am afraid it will fall through somehow now that I’m so excited about it. This job feels right for me, because I have decided that I can still call myself a social worker. I will get to work directly with non-profits on a software tool called CiviCRM. The people who work in the company are clearly passionate about their work and about helping mission-driven organizations. I will help with customer service, trainings, support, but my job title is CRM Developer—so it’s official, I am a web-based software developer. It will not feel real until I am working there daily and have proven myself on the job. However, I am trying to appreciate this time, where I can relax and continue teaching myself coding for fun.

I can’t believe how well everything has worked out, and I can’t help remembering four months ago when I was deciding whether to do this. I agonized over the decision, afraid I was going to ruin my life, yet once I did it, I leapt with both feet in and haven't had many regrets. I can’t really remember many days where I hated coding. There were days I was tired or didn’t know where to start, but once I got involved in a project it was usually hard to stop.

I’ve had a lot of people want to talk to me about Coding Dojo and getting into coding. I don’t know if the program I did would be right for everyone, but I have no question whether it was right for me. I think that was because I was self-motivated, a beginner, and truly loved the work. It also helped to be someone who could reach out for support when I needed it. The staff at Coding Dojo were all very supportive but you had to ask for help in the first place. I would recommend them to anyone else, as long as they really wanted to be a web developer and were willing to put up with bumps in the road that come from a growing company that is willing to listen to feedback.

Also, I love coding because loving math and logic is so much a part of who I am. When I was little, I would get my parents to buy me math and logic books for fun, or as special Christmas presents. I would get my brother to teach me advanced topics, and then I would try to teach other kids. I like to think I’m good at it, but whether I am or not, I love it enough to keep working on it even when I struggle and that may be the same thing. If you’re reading this, wondering if you should be a coder, consider that for yourself. I think the quality that most makes me good at this work is that I hate unsolved problems and so I will work until I can solve it, even if that means stepping away but still thinking about it.

Finally, I have to say something related only to leaving California. Many times over the past couple months I have found myself overwhelmed by gratitude to the people who made this trip truly special. Despite being far from home and often lonely, I always knew there were people who would help me if I needed. More than that, my hosts in California went above and beyond to make me feel comfortable and at home and taken care of. Those I didn’t stay with often offered me rides, went out of their way to see me, and brightened up my lonely days with their company.  I feel so honored when I think of all the people I have connected with along the way, and inspired by the risks that each of them are taking to shape their lives. Goodbye California, and thank you for all that you have given me, and how you have helped me to become a more-recovered social worker.

P.S. Has anyone else seen the Virgin inflight safety video—the animation is so cool! Then they ruin it by making you watch ads for ten minutes.

It's the final countdown!

I'm going home on Saturday (that's four days from now). The song referenced by the title is going through my head. It's hard to appreciate being here sometimes when I'm so ready to be home.
This week, I'm working on my final project in Rails. Learning Ruby on Rails was particularly challenging because it has so many of its own rules, and because I'm pretty tired. I had no idea all of this information could fit into my brain. For my project, I'm making a "TaskMaster" to keep myself on track in the future as I keep learning to code.
Here's a page where you can see your goals--the idea is to accomplish one per day:

However, coding aside, I have been reflecting a lot on my time here. About five weeks ago, I felt like I was ready to go home. I'm glad I didn't. I've felt lonely a lot since coming here, but that loneliness has had the curious effect of opening me up and helping me to see the importance of the people around me. Thank you to everyone who has made this experience so meaningful (and I hope you know who you are). 

It has been interesting to watch myself in a new context and see how much of what has held me back in the past has been me and how much has been the circumstances I was in. If this experience has taught me anything, it is that when something in my life isn't working, I need to make a plan to change it, because it's not worth making myself miserable just hoping things will get better. Sometimes I imagine trying to explain to myself from six months ago how much better life would get, but I wouldn't have been able to imagine it then.

I spent years of my life counting down time to some imaginary moment when life would get better, and it didn't until I made it better. Now, as I count down the days until I return home, I am working on appreciating what I have here and being grateful for these few months, rather than focusing on where I am not. 

Problem solved!

Just now I solved a programming problem that I have been puzzling over all week, and I actually love my solution. Sadly, it's 11pm on the west coast, making it 2am on the east coast, so there's no one to tell but my blog. My therapy homework site is up and running:

As of five minutes ago it includes the ability to save your "worksheets", although you can't yet access them--that's next! Administrators (me) can add topics and questions on the site. Next up is being able to delete topics and questions, mostly because it's a hassle to do directly in the database.
On the screen is a topic that one of my classmates helped me create. It treats the serious problem of TMSS or Too Much Swag Syndrome, as defined by the urban dictionary. If you or your loved have been affected by TMSS, please seek help.
I may have failed a test today, partly because I panicked in the middle and felt confused by the directions. It felt really overwhelming afterwards, mostly because I just wanted to be at my home and instead was way out here. However, I wound up talking to other people in my program and being reminded that most of us at Coding Dojo feel this way--lonely, competitive, perfectionistic, scared of what comes next--to some degree, and are doing our best to manage that day by day. It's still fun and exciting and worth it, but that doesn't mean it's alway easy.

But what shall I call them?

I have been here over five weeks now! I will be going home in just three and a half weeks. I'm feeling very ready to go home. I would love to be doing the same work, but just returning to my apartment at the end of the day though. I moved over the weekend and it threw me off a bit, even though it's better since I have less of a commute.

This week we are working on our personal projects. I went through decision paralysis over the weekend about what to work on and eventually decided to go with an idea I had wireframed before beginning the program. It was originally called "The Digital Therapist" but I have since changed it to "Your Therapy Homework." I will probably change it again. The idea is that people can fill out therapeutic worksheets online, and save them. The long-term goal would be for therapists to be able to create their own worksheets. It's not super fancy but actually wound up being more complicated than I would have thought. Mostly the database was challenging because I wanted everything to be very easy to edit, and I wanted users to be able to save the worksheets they've done.

I spent yesterday on a "mock up" where I did all the HTML and CSS, and some Javascript. Now I am moving into a Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework in CodeIgniter, and feeling very indecisive about naming my controllers. I realized I am giving myself a hard time for not being sure what to do, but I think the reason is that it's actually somewhat important and I want to make a good decision. I also have a tendency to perfect more than is healthy. I want this to end up being AMAZING when it is only my first project. I also enjoy thinking about organizational decisions. For example, if I name one controller "users" and one "worksheets" which controller leads to the worksheets that users save? My remote TA suggested "tags", "tasks", and "users", but I don't really know how to implement that.

I've been listening to Sandi Metz talk. I don't understand all of it yet, but it's a reminder that many of the things I'm thinking about are what "real" programmers (as in, not me yet) think about all the time. I get scared to break my lovely well-crafted programs, but I must in order to help them grow. We had a google Rails developer (from Wildfire) speak to us about Agile development, which is all about letting go of perfectionism. Time to try to implement this!