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title: "Grounding Oneself"
date: 2022-09-09T12:21:54-05:00
draft: false
---

The blog has been quiet lately because I’ve been mired in a well over a month long major work effort at my job. As a software developer responsible for a platform used by thousands, I’ve had a lot of work to deliver lately. On top of the late work nights, on call times, desperate panicked calls and more; my son is fourth months old and hitting a famous growth spurt. With that growth spurt comes a major sleep regression. We haven’t slept through the night in weeks and weeks as we were doing in July.

All of this has made my wife and I feel very frayed. She’s low on sleep, I am low on sleep and our baby has advancing needs. Between work and home it can feel like too much. As a result, I am working harder to ground myself. To bring myself back to a stable baseline where I can feel like a normal person again.

Earlier this week I got some alone time to get high and play videos and boy was that a relief! NOTE that I am not suggesting one do this to run from your problems, but it was a nice opportunity to clear my head. My work has a developer is very mentally intensive and there’s this sort of burning persistent “brain fuzz” that lingers on too much intensive work combined with little sleep. Such personal time helped me get grounded again.

Furthermore I also lean on my religious practice. As its very nature oriented it helps me get outside and look at the world around me. For awhile, spreadsheets, emails and codebases fade into the background. I am not obsessing about “velocity” or SCRUM or Agile methodologies. Just me and the outdoor world.

I am also trying to make more room in my life again for events. Family events mostly but also those with friends. I am preserving more memories in the form of photos that can be easily referenced in the future. I want to preserve a legacy for myself and for my family and this also has a grounding effect as well.

Another sort of obscure one is family history and ancient places. As I grow older, my memories and experiences of the past fade more into the background. I am getting better at learning about my family, the places they spent time and also where I spent time as a kid. I am very “geo-focused” and interested in visiting different places in the world where memories are made.

Everyone is different and nothing is perfect but I am working hard and being my best self as a new father, a husband, a software developer and a citizen of the world but sometimes I need some personal grounding.