am i too slow, or is everything too fast
i wrote this title out and saved as a draft during a fast time, and i'm glad i did. i most definitely would have forgotten. now i can write about it during a slow time. i don't remember the context around writing this out, but i remember feeling like i was catching up to... everything.
maybe it was the time change last week. funny, because you'd think extra daylight would put time at my side. time feels even further away. running to catch up with the sun, then running backwards to rewind the sky, but the time passes anyways.
i thought a lot about time today when a relative texted over a job posting during my lunch break. "technical writer III." i was thought of off the basis of what i went to school for. cool, i'll check it out. i looked at the qualifications, and i seemed to be a good fit until i wasn't. it wasn't me, but it kind of is. i felt embarrassed when i replied, "sorry, i don't qualify for that." i felt silly for apologizing, too, but i wasn't at fault. i was (unexpectedly) ill-prepared for a field that demanded competitive adaptability.
i know this now. i was short a few significant skills--API documentation, markdown, madcap flare--for this job, ones i didn't know that i was missing in uni until after graduation. earning my undergraduate degree (communications, focus in technical writing) came at a precarious time when tech certs and AI tool literacy weren't included in my degree program. i think i was at the tail end of the "old" program into an updated one, or my discipline wasn't well-funded at my institution. either way, it was unfortunate timing.
i graduated one late spring with honors and a solid portfolio, but without job prospects in my field. a few months after, late autumn, i made a new friend with the same credentials, only she had the skills i should have been having. she knew how to navigate github on a trusty thinkpad while getting those deliverables in, deciphering code somewhere in between. when i confided in her on my situation, she was surprised that my uni didn't better prepare me with courses or certifications relevant to the changing landscape. from then on, the onus was on me to figure out how to make myself marketable.
and so, i'm learning python for fun, or i'm trying to. i'm thinking, maybe going in with that mindset will make the urgency less looming. like, oh, this thing i do as a hobby, it'll double as a skill. i'll synthesize scripts in my IDE of choice with the fervor of a mad scientist, and those'll be a portfolio section after the fact. something, anything, that'll highlight me as a qualified candidate. only if it's fun first, though. but by then it becomes less fun, because the potential to commodify myself in every turn will be there when i have free time.
i have a lot to be grateful for, though. i'm in my thirties, planning for grad school soon in a completely different field. i have a decent job. my apartment is a sanctuary. programming is becoming another outlet in my creative arsenal. there are more things in my name than i could've dreamed of a decade ago. i have a treasure trove of friends that i'm glad to share the same timeline with.
but, i'm feeling time more and more lately. i'm seeing changes in my body. subtle changes, distinct with aging. the gnawing questions of "¿y tu novio?" and "so, grandkids?" from my tías are becoming tally marks in my wrinkles. each new grey hair is a fizzled out "what could've been?" each creak in my bones sounds off another tick in my biological clock.
i think of how, if i stuck with biochemical studies at 18, i'd have an MD and a mortgage by now. or if i stuck with so-and-so at 23 or such-and-such at 25, i'd be playing house with our 2nd child on the way. i'd have settled for something, or someone, i wasn't totally into because i was expected to, but at least time wouldn't have been wasted.
i feel like this post is too long. i started chiseling away at this draft at lunch time, determined to have it published soon. i blink, and it's been dark out. i feel like the time spent writing this could've been learning a skill at least 25% more or some made-up quantifier to show i'm efficient. there's no time for unknowns. i have to be 7 steps ahead at all times. i can't be in a world. i have to do everything now so i don't keep falling behind.
even though the hands i've been dealt have been, well, what they are, i should just keep on keeping on. 30-something is still young. i'm not making up for lost time if i got all the time in the world. still, at the intersection of self-assurance and trepidation, i really can't help but ask, am i too slow, or is everything too fast?