I don’t even know…
Today….
(This will be the usual work rant, but stay with me because it’s really about something else…)
Woke up kind of tired. Went to the Hawks game last night. It was a fine time, but probably should not have gone…too much going on and I came back just to keep working for a few hours. Was preparing for a meeting in the morning and got an alert that I’d be assigned a 500k-1 Million dollar high priority project to run. Anxiety kicks in about that time off I was planning while I made a deck to communicate my proposal for a Dev Ops/Agile cadence…
Early wake up call to go to a nearby base to pick up an ID for a different project. Was worried that I’d be late for my 8:30 appointment though it’s not really that far from where I live. Would have made it if the security guard didn’t try to chat me up and be nosy…
30 minute wait…got antsy as I had a 10:30 meeting and I had to book it to NE Atlanta for it (was just outside the perimeter on the South side).
Got my card…booked it to the client. Meanwhile, got an email from a different contract saying they needed a form ASAP…that I needed to sign it with my recently picked up card’s certificates, and that it required taking an Information Assurance training first.
Now normally, I don’t mind e-learning courses THAT much. They generally use the same theory as UX and can be fun…
I however was not in the mood. Had MAYBE an hour today to not be scheduled in a meeting….and I had to turn that form in by 1 pm. (It was 10:15 and I had back to back meetings literally all day.)
Fortunately, my morning meeting and the reason for staying up until about 2 last night was cancelled…..(of course) so I had time to get that training done.
It kept going…
And going….
AND GOING….
That training was literally 90 minutes long. WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT?!?!?!?!?!
Meanwhile one of my bosses came in and asked for my time…to talk about that high priority project I got assigned. I said I was swamped and asked if I could schedule them a bit later (that one hour I didn’t have booked).
They were cool about it.
Finished getting the training done and submitted the form.
Headed to my next meeting
Realized I needed to get with my coder that I mean to hand a project to while I’m out…send her a meeting invite for later from my phone to review scope and next steps as she’ll be out next week.
Get back from the meeting…then headed to the next one about the high priority project. Promised the moon about the support I’d get in them deflecting the rule people so we could actually develop like normal people.
Get back to my desk to missed calls and texts from family members… at 3 pm.
I never hear from them during the middle of the day….if they call…something’s happened.
Check the family groupme just to see…
My cousin was found dead today.
I might have mentioned him a few times…we took him trick or treating with us when we were little and he punked out because we were so hardcore about it.
He opened for Donald G.lover when he was still doing comedy shows as part of his concerts.
We bonded over being outlier nerdish people and difficulties in finding people to date who think like us because we get feedback that we’re “too white”.
He’s dead…
I was literally looking for him on facebook not too long ago to see what he was up to and talk smack… he’d deleted his profile and I didn’t think much about it.
I honestly was initially thinking he’d done something to himself. He’d sometimes post dark posts, but he also had a cynical sense of humor so it wasn’t that weird…
I also thought about that episode of Bei.ng M.ary Ja.ne…her mentioning how when you ask people how they are, you hope they say they’re okay…or that people automatically say “I’m fine” when they’re really not. I know for me, for the people I care about, I always assume the “I’m fine” response is BS and really further probe for the truth…
Then I got a wave of emotion. No really, what if he did something? I should have followed up instead of giving up so easily when I couldn’t find his profile. My sister and him are twins…born on the same day, same year…she has his info though they weren’t that close. I should have reached out because we were kindred spirits…
Then I thought how selfish that was.
When you think about it, this kind grief is SO selfish. Like you’re sad, but honestly you’re sad because their death has impacted your perception of yourself. It’s like you’re saying “woe is me…someone else lost their life and I could have done something or said something…I could have saved them. That sucks that they died, but really this is about me.”
It’s…interesting.
I keep choking up…then immediately feel guilty for feeling sad…like…who am I to feel sad about this?
More information coming about him though as I’ve been typing this…thankfully (horribly), it wasn’t a self harm thing. He had diabetes and recently had pneumonia. He lived by himself at my late uncle’s house and they think he passed from diabetic coma and pneumonia complications they found him on the ground with cold medicine nearby. They told his mom it’d been 3 days, but it’s really been a week since he passed. He and her were having a tiff and they don’t speak during them….
More “this is about me”…feelings with me being to myself so much or how I don’t talk to people on weekends if I can help it…so nobody would know…
No. This is about my cousin Greg.
Cousin Greg is gone.
All this to say…I’m not even sure what. So cliche to say “appreciate people while they’re here” but…still…do that.
Work wise, I just met with my coder to prepare for next week and declined this rest of my meetings.
Too much…
It’s the first one of the cousins that’s gone…
Just…
