Thank You

Last week, I had a four hundred word breakdown on the internet. It was a pretty low point for me. The isolation and the stress were getting to me and I just felt powerless in the face of everything we’re dealing with. But, I have a lot to be grateful for and I think it would be good to balance out last week’s post with a blog post about the thing I’m most thankful for right now.

I’m most thankful for the community around me and the friendships I’ve built in Boulder. I’ve lived in Colorado almost four years and in that time I’ve met so many kind people. It’s nice knowing that I have people here who care about me.

Within hours of hearing the news that I was being laid off, I received several leads on open positions from members of the Boulder Ruby community and former colleagues from Sphero and Recurly. Several people made introductions with recruiters and hiring managers over the next week. It took a lot of the edge off just knowing that I had people helping me through a difficult time.

Beyond the help with the job search, I had so many friends and colleagues reach out to see how I’m doing. I know it will sound sappy, but just having people ask if I was doing okay has made me feel a lot better. Friends have given me ideas for ways to cope or occupy myself as I try to navigate living alone and having most of my hobbies closed down. Sometimes, my brain gets so lost in all the things I can’t do that I don’t think about the things I could do. So having someone point out that there’s a trailhead down the street from me when I’ve forgotten that was option has made things better.

Zoom and FaceTime are poor substitutes for real human interaction, but being able to jump on a virtual happy hour with some of my friends or attend a virtual meetup to gain some sense of normalcy is a small luxury.

Life is hard right now, and I felt that very acutely last week. Thank you to everyone who’s reached out, made introductions, called me, or invited me to your Animal Crossing islands. I still feel pretty isolated, but having this community reminds me that not everything is terrible right now. Thanks so much.

Next week, I’ll go back to writing thoughtful articles about some nerdy thing I’m thinking about. :-)

Stay home and stay healthy.