What’s the point?
What’s the point?
I’ve been asking myself that a lot over the past few days.
I need to get X done.
What’s the point?
I need to write a document explaining Y.
What’s the point?
I need to get a deployment out and functions and infrastructure and all the usual things.
What’s the point?
I know this is the stages of grief talking. I can see it for what it is. Still, the question keeps coming back, not loudly, just persistently, as a way to slow everything down.
The thing is, I actually know the point.
No matter what I decide, no matter how this chapter ends, I still care. If I make the decision to retire, I will care right up until the day my badge is disabled. I know this because it’s how I’ve always been.
Once, at a previous job, I went to lunch in the middle of finishing my last code change. When I came back, all my access had been revoked. I asked what happened, and they were shocked I’d still been working.
At another job, I was a contractor. I ended my contract early so I could take a short break before having my first child. They still called with questions, and I answered them.
Years later, after I came back as an employee, they called again while I was in the hospital, the day after I delivered my second child. I answered then, too.
I have a strong sense of responsibility and accountability. Sometimes it works for me. Sometimes it works against me. But it’s consistent.
So, when I ask, “What’s the point?” now, it’s not because I’ve stopped caring, it’s because I care, and my brain is trying to protect my feelings by pretending otherwise.
The truth is simpler and harder at the same time. The point is that this is who I am. The point is that I still have to look at myself in the mirror.
And whoever I am at the end of this, I want to recognize her.
Alison + Wiggins