Living Like My Hair is on Fire
Woo! This month has been a wild ride.
In my day job, I build technology solutions for nonprofits. Have you ever been involved with a nonprofit, and thus know the struggles of trying to save the world on a shoestring? Then you likely know that in many small nonprofit organizations, technology can be an afterthought, the thing you only spend money on when it stops working entirely, not when it’s merely old and out of date.
We’re trying to change that - one of the things we do is education, so that our clients understand why it’s a good idea to fix or replace things that are out of date (security risks, failure risks, so that they don’t end up spending more when THING finally fails, etc.) But still - everyone’s at a different point on the matrix that is technology planning.
Which brings me to this month and the wild ride.
I have spend the first half of this month frantically building two websites for clients whose old website platform was old and out of date, and was finally being sunsetted.
They look awesome.
And that’s a lot of work. A lot of work that was my project to do, and that I couldn’t easily break down and hand off. I got through it - and I have my husband, my mother, and my co-workers to thank, because they kept my home running, helped me with holiday shopping, and kept our other clients working while I was building.
I pressed GO on the last website on Tuesday afternoon. It took me two days of living in an exhausted daze before it felt normal again to live like my hair wasn’t on fire.
This is not a complaint. It really isn’t; I’m incredibly grateful for all of the help I’ve received in the process of these projects; I’m proud of these baby websites that I’m sending into the world, to be changed and molded by the people who are now their caregivers; and I notice how it felt to live like my hair was on fire and how it feels to adjust back into a normal schedule, where I work on multiple projects each day. And- I love my job. I even love it when it leaves me so exhausted that it’s all I can do to grab a bag of soup from the freezer and warm it up in the evening before I fall into bed.
I’m looking forward to re-introducing parts of my normal schedule - getting up early and going to the gym, taking walks in the sun, making art - that have been shifted around. My virtual races are both stuck and have been for weeks - I’m looking forward to completing those.
It’s been a wild ride, a good ride - and I’m looking forward to shifting gears and seeing the scenery pass me by.
