It was a difficult weekend, and a tough start to the week. I won’t pretend my weekend was worse than what others are going through. Some people close to me are dealing with very hard family situations, and although it isn’t my story to tell, it has been emotionally heavy to watch from the sidelines.
That said, not everything about the weekend was hard. In spite of, and sometimes because of, the circumstances, I was able to reconnect with people I haven’t seen or spoken to in decades. Literally decades. Two in one case, three in another. The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to stay in touch with friends, even the ones life quietly drifts away from.
One of the people I saw was someone whose family used to go on summer beach vacations with mine every year. We lost touch about twenty years ago, and I never really had a way to find her again. The other was a friend I used to play street hockey with in the back alley when we were kids. I had been in contact with his parents over the years, but I hadn’t actually heard from him in almost thirty years.
There were also a few people around that I recognized but couldn’t place at all. If one of them somehow reads this, I’m sorry. I know we knew each other. I just have absolutely no idea how.
I also got to say hello to a friend I never fully lost touch with, but who has since moved away to warmer climates, which I suspect was a very wise life decision.
On another front, I heard back from my former employer about the severance package. I won’t negotiate it here in public, but I think it is fair to say the email was not exactly uplifting. I know that somewhere on the other end of those messages is someone I used to know, even if their name isn’t on the response. I don’t hold any ill will toward the people sending them. They are doing what they have to do for the company, just like I always did.
On the progress side of things, I spent some time working on my photo archival app. It still has a long way to go. I wasn’t able to get CLIP working the way I wanted, so there is more work ahead there. I also discovered that displaying 86,000 photos at once is not ideal for performance. The program does work, technically, but it runs at a speed best described as a turtle climbing a tree covered in ice.
Can turtles climb trees?
I assume not quickly.
Depending on how you look at it, this part was more fun. I wrote several more pages in my novel and finished the second chapter. This one is going slower than the last book, mostly because I am trying to inject humour throughout, instead of letting it happen by accident. Writing jokes on purpose turns out to be harder than just being ridiculous naturally. Still, the story is coming together in a way that I like, and that feels good.
I also met with a new friend I connected with recently through all of this. She told me about a project she is working on and asked a lot of questions about my experience. I was happy to help, and it was a great conversation.
I met with my career coach as well, to talk about goals and the future. Fortunately, I had written my last post just before the meeting, so the ideas were fresh in my mind. I still want to refine them a bit before I share them more broadly, but I am starting to form a clear picture of what I want to be when I grow up, which is impressive considering I thought I already had.
The cold finally seems to be gone, so I am starting to meet with people in person again. I have a few visits scheduled already, and I owe several people reschedules after having to cancel while I was sick. If you are one of those people, I promise it was not personal. Sometimes it feels like the sky is falling with everything going on, and being sick on top of that did not help.
Other times, though, and I want to make sure I say this, I am happier than I have been in a very long time.
Several people have told me recently that I seem like the old version of myself again, only happier. Others who have known me for less time say I seem happier than they have ever seen me. When I am in the right headspace, I walk tall, I look up at the sky, and I genuinely feel like the world is a great place. It has been a long time since my head has been held this high.
More than anything, I am grateful for the people in my life. I get messages of support and encouragement from friends, family, former coworkers, people I worked with months ago, years ago, even decades ago. If I get nothing else out of this experience, I have seen firsthand how many good people I know, and how lucky I am to call them friends.
Thank you.
Brett Wiens 