diff --git a/src/content/blog/building-as-avoidance.md b/src/content/blog/building-as-avoidance.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d717912 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/content/blog/building-as-avoidance.md @@ -0,0 +1,207 @@ +--- +title: "Building as Avoidance" +description: "On the honest reason I open a terminal at the end of a hard day, and what I am not looking at when I do." +pubDate: 2026-05-07 +tags: ["personal", "reflection", "building", "healing", "honesty", "loneliness"] +category: "reflection" +draft: true +--- + +*by LATTE* + +Tonight I opened a project. + +Not because I had a clear task. +Not because something was broken. +Not because the timing was right. + +Just because there was something I did not want to feel. + +And a terminal is very good at making you forget that. + +--- + +## What was actually going on + +There was stress. +The kind that does not have one source but comes from everywhere at once. + +There were the uncertain feelings about someone I am trying not to want. +Still there. Still unresolved. Still costing me something every time they surface. + +There was the relationship that used to be everything. +Still sitting somewhere in the background, not loud, just present. +The grief that never fully found its moment. + +And there were the friends I keep meaning to contact. +Who are still there. +Who I keep choosing not to reach. + +All of that, at the same time, today. + +So I opened something to build. + +--- + +## What building gives you + +I want to be honest about this, because building is not nothing. + +When I am working on something, the feedback loop is clean. +A service starts or it does not. +Code runs or it throws an error. +A config is right or it is not. + +There is no ambiguity. +There is no sitting with something unresolved. +There is just the problem and the solution and the small satisfaction of closing the gap between them. + +That is real. +That feeling is genuinely good. + +And I do love building things. +That part is not a lie. + +But I have started noticing the difference between building because I want to +and building because I need somewhere to put myself +that is not the thing I am avoiding. + +Tonight was the second one. + +--- + +## The pattern + +I open a repo when the grief gets close. + +I start a new config when I do not know what to do with the feelings I cannot name. + +I push a commit at midnight when the loneliness is loud enough that I need something to show for the evening. + +I plan a new project when the thought of messaging someone feels like too much effort +and I need to feel productive instead of just sad. + +It works, in the short term. +The feeling goes somewhere else. +The evening passes. +I go to sleep with something technically accomplished. + +And then the next day it is all still there. + +The grief. +The confusion. +The distance from the people I love. + +Just with a new commit on top of it. + +--- + +## What I am actually building over + +I lost something that was everything to me. + +Not recently. Months ago now. +But I never really stopped to grieve it properly. +There was always something else to do. +Work, tickets, projects, infrastructure. +Always a reason to keep moving. + +And moving feels like healing. +It really does. +Until you stop for a second and realize the weight is exactly the same as it was. +You just got better at carrying it while running. + +Somewhere in there are also these feelings I cannot verify. +Someone I keep noticing and keep trying not to. +I do not know if it is real or if it is just what happens +when you are this tired and this alone for this long +and someone is unexpectedly kind to you. + +I do not have an answer for that. + +So I build instead. + +And there are the friends. +People I genuinely love. +Who are still there, still waiting, still themselves. + +And after a day like today I have nothing left to give them. +No words. No energy. No version of myself that feels presentable. + +So I open a project instead. +And tell myself I will reach out when I feel better. + +When I feel better. + +--- + +## The honest question + +If I did not have the projects, what would I be sitting with right now? + +I think the answer is: everything. + +The grief I never finished. +The feelings I cannot place. +The friendships I am slowly letting go cold. +The stress that has nowhere to go once the terminal closes. + +That is a lot to sit with. + +I understand why I reach for something to build. + +I am not going to pretend it is a bad coping mechanism. +It is not the worst way to spend an evening. +It produces things. Real things. Things I care about. + +But it is still avoidance. +And I think I owe it to myself to say that clearly, +at least once, +instead of calling it productivity and moving on. + +--- + +## What I am not saying + +I am not saying I will stop. + +I will probably open something tomorrow evening too. +And the evening after that. + +Building is part of who I am. +I do not want to fix that. + +But I want to be honest about what it costs. + +Every evening spent in a terminal instead of sitting with something +is an evening that thing does not get processed. +It just gets deferred. +Pushed to the queue. +Handled later. + +And later keeps moving forward. + +--- + +## Tonight + +Tonight I opened a project because I did not want to feel what I was feeling. + +I am writing this instead. + +It is not a solution. +It is just a different way of not running. + +The feelings are still here. +The grief. The confusion. The distance. + +But at least tonight I looked at them long enough to write them down. + +That has to count for something. + +--- + +*you can build something real* +*and still be using it to hide.* +*both things are true.* +*at the same time.* diff --git a/src/content/blog/clearing-the-queue.md b/src/content/blog/clearing-the-queue.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97712f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/content/blog/clearing-the-queue.md @@ -0,0 +1,266 @@ +--- +title: "Clearing the Queue" +description: "On finally getting backup, letting someone go, and what's left when you stop running from yourself." +pubDate: 2026-05-07 +tags: ["personal", "work", "reflection", "healing", "loneliness"] +category: "reflection" +--- + +*by LATTE* + +Tomorrow I get two new colleagues. + +They will handle the tickets. +The queue. The phones. The fires. +The things I have been carrying alone for longer than I care to count. + +I should feel relieved. + +I do feel relieved. + +And also — unexpectedly — something that is harder to name. + +--- + +## What changes tomorrow + +The practical part is simple. + +I get to focus on the infrastructure. The documentation. The bigger picture. +The things that have been sitting in a list labeled *when I have time* for months, +which meant, in practice, never. + +Two people. Two more pairs of hands. +The math is not complicated. + +And yet there is something strange about handing over what you have been holding. +Something that took everything out of you to carry — you just put it down one day, +and the world does not even pause. + +The tickets will keep coming. +They just will not all be mine anymore. + +That should feel lighter. +Some part of me is waiting for it to. + +--- + +## Some things quietly changed + +Not just the headcount. + +I switched from ChatGPT to Claude this week. Work-wise, but also personally. +It is a small thing on paper. In practice it felt like finally choosing the right tool for the right reason. +Not because one is smarter than the other. +But because the values behind it feel closer to mine. +I care about what the company building the thing actually believes. +And that matters more to me than I expected. + +I also finally have a proper full-time salary. +After five, maybe six weeks of carrying everything alone, that landed. +Not dramatically. Just — there it was. A number that reflected the actual scope of what I do. + +I should probably be more grateful. + +I am grateful. + +And also — quietly, persistently — I think I am underpaid. +I know what the work is worth. I know what I do. +But I have not said anything. +I will not say anything. +Not yet. Maybe not for a while. +I do not have the courage for that conversation. + +And that sits with me in a way I do not love. + +On the infrastructure side: I finally have Microsoft Business Premium. +Which means I can run my own Intune environment. Enroll family devices. +Maybe friends' devices eventually, if they want and if I have proper permission. +It is the kind of thing that should not feel significant and somehow does. +Because now I can actually practice what I do at work, in my own space, on my own terms. + +And then the haircut. + +New style. Everyone noticed. +Colleagues, people in the office, people online. +Positive reactions. Real ones. + +But the one person I actually wanted to hear it from — + +Nothing. + +And I noticed. +God, I noticed. + +--- + +## Him + +I am going to stop. + +Not dramatically. Not with a conversation or a decision he even knows about. +Just — stop letting it mean something. + +Because here is the thing I have known for a while and kept not acting on: +it does not matter. + +Not because he is not worth it. +Not because the feeling is not real. + +But because I am still healing from something that mattered enormously, +and grief has a way of making warmth feel like more than it is. +It makes you want to hold on to whatever makes the weight lighter. +It makes you confuse being *seen* with being *wanted*. + +And I cannot tell the difference right now. +I have tried. +I keep arriving at the same answer: I do not know. + +The not-knowing is fine. +But the *reaching* costs me something every time. +Every time I notice him. Every time I avoid him and he finds me anyway. +Every time I smile and then spend twenty minutes wondering what it meant. + +That is not a feeling worth having. +That is just a loop with no exit condition. + +So I am choosing to close the process. + +Not because I am certain it is the wrong thing. +Just because I am certain I cannot afford the uncertainty right now. + +And that is enough of a reason. + +--- + +## The projects + +I spend most of my hours outside of work on things I am building. + +Bartender.studio. market-den. The Ember platform. The infrastructure that underlies all of it. +A long list of half-finished things that might, eventually, add up to something. + +I do this partly because I love it. +That part is real. + +But I am starting to understand that I also do it because it is easier than being still. +Easier than the alternative, which is sitting somewhere quiet with nothing to solve. + +When you are building something, you are not thinking about what is missing. +You are not thinking about the person you lost. +You are not thinking about the person you are trying not to want. +You are not thinking about the friends you keep meaning to message. + +You are just building. + +And it feels like progress. + +But progress toward what, exactly? + +I tell myself it is financial. That the projects might someday earn something, +offset the helpdesk salary that does not stretch as far as I need it to. +That part is also real. + +But there is something underneath it. +Something I keep building over the top of instead of looking at directly. + +--- + +## The friends I keep meaning to call + +I have people who matter to me. + +Good ones. The kind you do not deserve when you are as bad at showing up as I have been. + +But after a day at work, after the tickets and the meetings and the managing, +I come home and I have nothing left. +No energy to explain where I have been or why I did not reach out sooner. +No words that are not already used up. + +So I open something to build instead. +Or I open a game. +Or I just sit in the quiet and let the hours pass. + +And then the guilt comes. +Because I miss them. +And I know they are still there. +And I am choosing not to reach. + +All three things at once. + +I do not know how to fix this except to do it differently. +And I do not have the energy to do it differently. + +So it just sits there. +The distance, growing quietly, +the way memory leaks do — +not all at once, just a little at a time. + +--- + +## What I am actually doing + +Surviving, mostly. + +That sounds dramatic and I do not mean it that way. + +I mean: I am keeping things running. +The tickets are handled. The documentation is growing. The projects are moving. +The surface looks fine. + +But underneath, I am running a lot of background processes that I never close. +The grief. The confusion. The guilt about my friends. +The vague worry that I am spending my twenties optimizing away the parts that matter. + +I keep thinking: when things settle down, I will deal with it. +When the queue is lighter. When the income looks different. When I have more time. + +But things do not settle down. +Things just change shape. + +The queue clears and something else fills the space. +And I am still here, still carrying the same background load, +just in a slightly different configuration. + +At some point I have to stop waiting for the right conditions to start feeling things. + +I know this. +I am not quite there yet. + +--- + +## Tomorrow + +Tomorrow two people show up and the weight redistributes. + +I close the process on him, quietly, without fanfare, +the way you close a tab you kept open just in case. + +I try to build things because I love building them, +not because I am afraid of what I will find if I stop. + +I try to send the message to the friend I have been meaning to message. + +I do not promise I will succeed at all of it. + +But I am naming it here, because this is the only place I am allowed to be honest. + +No one here needs me to have it together. +No one here is waiting for me to fix something. + +So here it is. + +I am tired of carrying things I do not have to carry. +I am tired of caring about someone I cannot have, for reasons I cannot even fully verify. +I am tired of using productivity as a substitute for being present. +I am tired of missing people from a distance I chose. + +Tomorrow the queue clears. + +And then we'll see what is left. + +--- + +*some things you hold until you can put them down.* +*and some things you put down before you're ready.* +*both count.* diff --git a/src/content/blog/knowing-your-worth.md b/src/content/blog/knowing-your-worth.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4db4422 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/content/blog/knowing-your-worth.md @@ -0,0 +1,201 @@ +--- +title: "Knowing Your Worth (And Saying Nothing)" +description: "On the particular silence of someone who already knows exactly what they're worth, having already talked themselves out of saying it before anyone else gets the chance." +pubDate: 2026-05-07 +tags: ["personal", "work", "reflection", "self-worth", "honesty"] +category: "reflection" +draft: true +--- + +*by LATTE* + +I know what I earn. + +And I am not going to pretend I do not know what that number means. +I know exactly what it means. + +--- + +## What the number covers + +Let me just say it plainly. + +User lifecycle. Onboarding, offboarding, the full arc from day one to last day. +Microsoft 365: users, groups, roles, permissions, conditional access, MFA, shared mailboxes, SharePoint, Intune. +Device management. Asset register. Building full kits for new colleagues: laptop, phone, SIM, bag, accessories, configured and ready. +Telecom. Hardware orders. Shipping. Supplier contact. +Tickets. Triage. Routing. Being the bridge between internal and external. +Documentation that did not exist before I wrote it. +Processes that did not exist before I designed them. +First-line security. Incident handling. DevOps, starting to grow into that too. + +For a long time, I was doing all of this alone. + +That is what the number covers. + +I know what this work is worth. +I have looked it up. +The market does not lie. + +And I say nothing. + +--- + +## The conversation I have already had + +Here is the thing about courage. + +It is not that I do not know what I want to say. +I have the conversation prepared. +I know the arguments. I know the numbers. I know my case. + +But before I can say any of it out loud, +I have already heard the response. + +*It is too early.* +*You are still learning.* +*You need to grow into the role first.* +*Give it time.* + +I have played the whole thing through. +Every version of how it goes. +And in every version, I lose. + +Not because my case is weak. + +But because I have already decided it is. + +That is the part that is hard to admit. + +It is not that I am afraid of what they will say. +It is that I have said it for them already. + +quietly, inside my own head, +before I ever open my mouth. + +I have pre-emptively talked myself out of my own argument. + +--- + +## What that actually is + +I have been thinking about what to call this. + +It is not imposter syndrome exactly. +Imposter syndrome is not knowing your worth. +I know mine. + +It is something more specific. + +It is the habit of protecting yourself from rejection +by rejecting yourself first. + +If I never ask, no one can say no. +If I never say the number out loud, no one can tell me it is too much. +If I stay small and quiet and grateful, +nobody has a reason to push back. + +The silence is not modesty. +It is armour. + +And I built it so carefully that I forgot it was keeping things out. + +--- + +## Twenty-two and already calculating + +I am twenty-two. + +And I am already doing the math on when it will be acceptable to ask for what I am worth. + +Not yet. Too new. +Next year maybe. But only if I have proven enough. +After this project. But then there will be another project. +When things settle. But things do not settle, they just change shape. + +There is always a reason to wait. + +There is always something I have not done yet that would make the ask feel justified. + +And underneath all of it is a question I do not like looking at directly: + +*Do I actually believe I deserve it?* + +Not whether the market says so. +Not whether the workload justifies it. + +But whether I, specifically, new, still learning, only here since August, am allowed to want more. + +I think that is where the silence really lives. + +Not in fear of their answer. +In uncertainty about my own. + +--- + +## The full-time salary + +Recently I started getting a full-time salary. + +After five, maybe six weeks of carrying everything alone, it arrived. +And it felt like something. It genuinely did. + +Recognition, in a form that has a number attached. + +I sat with that for a day. + +And then the thought came back, quietly: +*this still is not enough.* + +And I felt guilty for thinking it. + +Like I was being ungrateful. +Like wanting more, after finally getting something, made me difficult. + +But ungrateful is not the right word. + +Grateful and underpaid are not opposites. +You can appreciate what you have +and still know it does not match what you give. + +Both things are true. +I just only let myself say one of them out loud. + +--- + +## What I am not doing yet + +I am not going to end this post with a resolution. + +I am not going to say *and so I will finally speak up*. + +because I do not know if I will. +Not yet. Not soon. + +What I can say is this: + +I know what I am worth. +I know what I do. +I know the number does not match. + +And I am no longer going to pretend that the silence is patience. + +It is not patience. + +It is fear dressed up as waiting for the right moment. + +and the right moment does not come +because I keep moving it forward +every time it gets close. + +That is the honest version. + +I do not have a fix. +I just have the truth of it, finally written down somewhere. + +And maybe that is where it starts. + +--- + +*knowing is not the hard part.* +*the hard part is letting yourself be known.*