I Am Absolutely Unlimited

… and so are you. All limitations are truly in our minds and what we are is truly infinite. I want to write one more post for tonight consolidating my good new behaviours and habits although this means I violate my “no working too late” rule. But anyway this is a blog post. So what are my good new behaviours? Actually a story first. Many years ago in Liverpool a man really saved my life.

I was stranded late at night in the city. I had had a seizure and was really unwell. The worst time of the week to get seizures are the nights when other people drink. People are much slower to help. So there I was alone way up by the Liver building and I was totally stuck. This man found me and let his McDonald’s go cold to talk to me and put me in a taxi. But he said to me “you need to accept all the support you can get.” You know I used to be really good at accepting support and then somehow I realised that some of the stuff I was getting wasn’t as helpful as it could be and so I stepped back a little bit. The uni didn’t like it and I got into loads of trouble. (They didn’t really like the seizures). But then towards the end I re-engaged with a lot of their stuff. I can’t remember what the outcome was. But I wish I could. I definitely had a few people along the way but time and time again it is kindness that helps more than any kind of qualifications

Anyway. So I have decided to listen to that kind man. 6 years later on and for different reasons. I have decided to really engage with and open up to and graciously accept and see the kindness in the most recent offer of support I have had in my workplace re my neurodiversity (I won’t say any more). And to confirm what access I have to other forms of support I had previously used. But also support can come in more subtle ways and I am trying to be a bit more flexible. We have three channels at work I can use; a women in tech channel, a neurodivergent channel and an early careers channel. I try to not let non work channels distract me. But I can have them muted until I need them. And they all have weekly wins/learning threads on a Friday. And I have decided to use all 3

Because sometimes I am guilty of not engaging with the resources of support round me. 

And even for example: sometimes I find asynchronous work a little lonely but actually I am not very good at going to big company meetings and this could be a way of feeling less isolated. So to not seek out new meetings but to engage with what there is (I don’t seek out new meetings nowadays anyway but I used to struggle a bit with isolation). Another great source of support is the colleagues in my local office and the people who smile at me. I have friends in the London office too

I’m very lucky to have an amazing staff engineer I chat to on LinkedIn about work and I have so many engineers who love me and have believed in me over the years. I love them so much and am so grateful for them

Because so many good friends have loved me and mentored me over the years. And sometimes there is someone who doesn’t like us. But what about the 1000 people who do

And what about the pylons and the internet towers that I have felt close to my heart since childhood and the water and hydroelectric dams that speak to me - are you really going to tell me this isn’t meant for me - after all of these years…