Dreaded February

I have trouble with my birthday and I have thought about why.  Every year, February rolls around and I get antsy.  As I have said I am not a fan of February but my birthday in particular really sets me on edge.  It is not because I am another year older or that I do not like the attention.  I think I have broken it down into two reasons.


First Reason:  I have had a lot of disappointment on my birthday.  Having a birthday in an area that tends to get snow in winter can be a blessing for some as they love snow and enjoy snow days.  For me, I hated snow because it was often bad enough that I had several bday plans postponed or canceled because of inclement weather.  I remember birthday mornings where I bounced out of bed excited for the plans we had made.  I look out my window...to see three to five foot snow drifts.  I moved to Texas thinking 'Ha!  Come and get me here snow!'.  I had a couple of iced out days but as an adult, you have more abilities to celebrate the way you want than as a kid so it wasn't too bad.  After getting married, my expectations changed and I am not sure why they did.  I guess I expected my immediate family to do more.  My 40th birthday was more disappointing than any as a kid.  It fucking sucked.


Second Reason:  Employment.  Looking back over my resume, I have lost three jobs and changed jobs twice on that dreaded month.  I am getting shell shocked to the point where the month draws near and I start to freak out.  It is distressing to hate an entire month of the year.


I realize this is all in my head.  I have complete control on whether or not I want this to affect me.  Like thousands of other things in life, we have total control on how they affect us.  I am ready to drop this stress but it is hard when it is reinforced almost every year.

The Lonely Road of a Single Worker

For about five years now, I have slowly grown my skills with Microsoft SharePoint, my chosen career.  In my various jobs, I have been in an autonomous position directing my own time without peers and very little supervision.  This is already a condition I do not thrive in as I have challenges with time management and focus.  Being alone has other problems such as no one with which to collaborate.  When it comes to tasks, I have to generate, research, develop, debug and maintain them pretty much single handedly.  I have next to no support save my patient wife and my keen ability to Google solutions.  So for five years now I have been virtually alone doing a job that while I enjoy, is freaking hard.

I have been using SharePoint almost completely out of the box, meaning I have not developed any custom code or solutions; pretty much grab components and duct tape them together.  It is impressive what can be done with out of the box SharePoint but lately I have started to become dissatisfied with my results.  My ideas were out growing what SharePoint could do without customization so I started learning (again, pretty much no support) so I could generate more sophisticated solutions.  Today I can say I have achieved a milestone.  I developed a completely custom solution.  It is small and horribly written but it works and the results are pretty damn fancy.  I know I will be rebuilding it over the next few months but at least I have something that I can say I built from scratch and that feels pretty damn good.

What I need to do now is remember this victory.  There is so much to learn and I have no one but myself to support me but if I keep in mind that I CAN do it, I think the future could be easier.