On Becoming:

A Bit of Late News

For anyone who's been reading for a while now, I've alluded to having large life events in progress earlier. Expanding on that a bit, the biggest two were that back in April my wife and I were in the process of purchasing our first house, and the fact that my wife is pregnant and due in early November. So I've had both of those running.

On top of both of those, is starting a new job in January, relocating about 250 miles, and moving into a 6 month rental. All of these were planned, and most of them were in the works for quite a while waiting on the keystone of my changing jobs.

Even with the fact that all of this counts as according to plan and nothing has gone wrong, saying that I've been busy and under considerable stress is a bit of an understatement.

Being worn a bit thin has reminded me of something: I feel like I'm constantly "becoming" something. Or perhaps to be more accurate, becoming good at being something. Right now I feel like I'm still:

Becoming a Developer:

Despite the fact I turn out what I consider great results, I'm still honing my craft at this and feel like there's still room for improvement.

Becoming an Adult:

Adding on a whole new scope level of responsibilities has been interestingly humbling on this one. Moving in to a new house and being responsible for everything feels shockingly huge. Being able to do things like repaint, replace appliances, and tear up the yard all will be wonderful in the long term, but having a 80+ item multi-year to-do list is daunting.

Becoming a Father:

So far I've done very little on that front aside from provide support, and I'm truly hoping that I'll be good at it. It's still absolutely terrifying, because I won't know the answer until I'm actually doing it.

It's About the Journey

If anything, my list of things that I'm becoming has grown in the last five years. I only mentioned what feel like the largest ones that are in the most flux right now, it ignores a litany of things that range from big things like "Husband" to small things like "Well Dressed."

I don't expect to ever finish off the list, there's always room for improvement somewhere. That being said, I really hope that in 6 months I've managed to at least reduce the scope of improvement that I feel needs to happen to the most important things.