From one Zag to another

This week is the start of my journey with Flatiron School and the prompt for this first post is “Why did you decide to study Software Engineering?”

I’ll be honest: I find this question to be utterly pedestrian and — especially in these current unprecedented times — somewhat triggering.

My answer to why changes with my mood. Somedays, it’s because I want to build something that is impactful. Somedays, it’s because I just want to be able to pay bills again. Somedays, it’s because I want to feel mentally engaged. Somedays it’s because I’ve decided it’s no longer reasonable to follow my actual dreams. Recently, the more I brood over it, the easier it is to go down the slippery slope of unproductive thoughts that leave me increasingly resentful at nothing in particular.

So instead I think it’d be more fun to talk about what’s brought me to this point in life.

My parents are so incredibly intelligent. They worked hard in school, studied difficult fields at good universities, earned their Master’s and PhD from reputable institutions, and found employment in stable careers that compensated them fairly for their skills. They were clearly great role models and it wasn’t until well into adulthood that I learned how sneaky they were when raising my two older siblings and I.

I grew up with a plethora of experiences because of them, and was never forced into one activity or pulled away from another. As a kid everything flowed naturally as I got to try out a multitude of hobbies, travel and learn languages, study different subjects in school, and so on. I was a quintessential kid from well-off suburban area right outside Washington, DC. I don’t know if I’d go so far to say my parents were proud of me, but they definitely weren’t ashamed.

I did well enough in school. I loved math. I loved science. I loved solving puzzles and critical thinking. It felt good to get good grades. The obvious next choice was to pursue some degree in engineering for my undergraduate studies. Studying electrical engineering was the first actual decision regarding my adult life that I had ever made. I was so sure of myself. Until I wasn’t.

After graduation, I found a nice job as a process engineer at a budding manufacturing company. I had been working contently for a few years before it dawned on me that this wasn’t really my cup of tea. None of this was my cup of tea. Over the years I had managed to trick myself into thinking that because I had a stable job and could support myself that I was where I should be. The façade was slowly chipped away as my friends moved out of town and to their own new adventures. It hit me that my loving mother and father had pigeon-holed me into a safe and stable lifestyle that I had no interest in. I confronted my mother about it one day and she laughed, admitting they had carefully curated parts of my life to emphasize hard sciences that could lead to a sound profession, while casting other things as frivolous interests — but of course, all in a manner that led me to believe it was of my own accord. So sneaky.

The jig was up and I couldn’t imagine continuing down the path I had been aimlessly going along with for over two decades. So I joined the circus.

Circus is hard. It’s as if the whole point is to make difficult things look easy, and easy things look difficult. At some point I started training predominantly in contortion and had to come to terms with a whole new level regarding my relationship with my mind and body. For two full years I trained backbends, leg flexibility, hand balancing, and all sorts of other acrobatics about 40 hours a week. It was an incredible experience. I reveled in every moment of it — even the times I passed out from laying on my windpipe too long as my legs were bent over my face and my butt was literally sitting on my head. Sometimes it’s hard to remember to breathe. The people I met and worked with opened up many new avenues I didn’t even know existed, and I was ready to take a peak down all of them.

Many circus performers come from some sort of rigorous training background. Some come from circus families and are trained as children. Some were competitive gymnasts. Entering this world as an adult had its own set of challenges, some real and some perceived, that I had to work through. Initially there was a decent amount of self-doubt and a purveying feeling of being too late to the game to ever be successful but I slowly realized that wasn’t at all the case and there were indeed a few advantages from having started so far into adulthood. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about others. I learned a lot about discipline and perseverance. And I learned a lot about gauging values and understanding how they can differ so much between — as well as within — an individual.

But having a great time and doing what makes you happy will only get you so far when the world as we know it decides to call an audible.

We are now no longer in the “before times,” we now live very snuggly in unprecedented times. I can go on all day about how hard and sad it is to see live performance arts struggle. I can go on all day about how upsetting it was to see the dream I had just discovered become mangled in extra challenges. I can go on all day about how scary things are in general, but being melodramatic is exhausting. Everyone is affected. Everyone is hurting. This year has been a complete blur.

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