gort8's Journal: Looking forward with hindsight

It's late at night. I'm doing laundry and trying to get some thoughts together before the work week.

I think it's time for some significant refactoring of the syntax and semantics of much of my life. This week: figure out a plan, and steps. Design some working code for my life -- even if I can't implement it all yet.

It's like a second life. I never thought I'd be here. It's really wonderful. I felt like my life had "spun out and rolled, hit a telephone poll, he died with the radio on", but I find that I'm still alive. "Those dreams are dead, but I'm alive."

I also find myself waking up to being the adult in my own life.

People make decisions professionally and personally that affect me. Marketing decisions. Naming things. Protocols of interaction that affect my job. Decisions of touch and deep communication that thoroughly matter to me. Structure of project code and people's lives. Decisions are made that affect me, my children, my friends, and my pathways of intimate communication among them. Sometimes, these decisions are made by people doing their job with no thought of the end result. Sometimes, these decisions are made by an important one who shares some sediment of love with me and I know means us both well. Sometimes the decisions are not the best. Sometimes my interpretation is incomplete. Sometimes there are no conscious decisions.

But I need to decide what is my position, propose a strategy, negotiate and convince. It is as much up to me as anyone.

This week, I want to recognize and plan what I can do, and what I really want to accomplish -- then think through how to do it with help from (and sometimes in spite of) my colleagues, children, intimate friends, and myself.

This week I need to consciously live. Decide. Slash and burn when necessary. Move. Act. Design. Build. And it's going to take some absurdly fun creativity for the next steps.

Issues:

Technologically, great opportunity but tactical problems. Messaging and structure.

Sometimes I don't react fast enough. Last week I missed an opportunity and it hurts now. Decide what to do now.

Kids that need calm assertive leadership. And need me. And I haven't been around enough. An incredibly smart little girl that seemed rudderless today. Apparent inevitable collision course between her and a (defensive) triangle relationship with me -- man, I hate that -- does it have to be like that?

Personal feelings of rejection in many reasonable and unreasonable ways. Duh. Like you haven't had that before. In fact, on a personal level there is usually something interesting there. Opportunity for something deeper. Find it.

Too many errands and details Need to reduce task-switching friction.