New Year, New Site

Itā€™s been a hell of a time since I wrote my first (and only) blog post on Substack. At that time (2020), I was fresh out of college, had just moved to Texas to start a new job, and was was living on my own far away from all my loved ones (not to mention the backdrop of COVID before vaccines).

I was overwhelmed, lonely, and looking for an activity to take my mind off everything. I was also looking to take actionable steps to showcase my abilities as a developer; I had done projects in college, but I didnā€™t have anything that was mine, and I had no idea where to start.

Since I was spending just about all my time indoors, I became more involved in social media and found myself engrossed in tech Twitter. Something I noticed was that many of the people I came to admire on the platform had their own blogs where they would write about all different topics. I loved reading their posts and gaining insight into their careers and hopes for the future. Eventually, reading led to my attempt at writing my own blog to chronicle my own career journey.

In the Beginningā€¦

The first article I wrote was a catharsis of all my fears about my abilities and future in tech, and the sense of pride and accomplishment I felt after publishing the article was unlike anything Iā€™d felt in a long time. If I had been in a better place at that time, I definitely wouldā€™ve continued writing about my journey. But dealing with my career fears and the intense struggle of being far away from everyone I loved was just too much, and I could barely bring myself to do anything besides work most days.

Since that time, much of my life had changed- I got a new job, moved to Massachusetts, was vaccinated (and boosted), and have reached a place where I am much happier ā˜ŗļø.

The Best Laid Plansā€¦

While my life had done a 180 in 2021, it also just wasnā€™t my year for creation. I had ideas that I jotted down, and there were some projects I even started- full HTML, CSS, JS files dedicated to the idea. And yet, I could never bring myself to reach the finish line. Iā€™d lose motivation, or when Iā€™d review my work from the previous day Iā€™d hate it and just scrap the whole thing. On top of everything, my exhaustion and mental health were big blockers. Simple tasks felt impossible, and it was hard to make any tangible progress.

Eventually I realized I needed distance; I was becoming very discouraged from my failed attempts at creation. I understood that I wasnā€™t in the mindset to write even a single line of code if it wasnā€™t for work, and that there were other ways I could occupy my time that made me happier. And by the way, that is completely healthy! Coding absolutely doesnā€™t need to be your life in order to be a good developer, in fact it really shouldnā€™t be. Itā€™s good to continue learning, and personal projects can be a fun way to do that, but burnout is real and itā€™s important to step back when you feel overwhelmed. Work/life balance is necessary people!

So I stepped away from tech (besides work) and engaged in other things I wanted to do. I kept jotting down ideas if I had them, but otherwise my code editors were closed when I wasnā€™t working. I took time to just adjust to my new job, new city, and new life. I went outside more, something I never did in Texas when COVID was rampant. I explored Massachusetts and found myself more drawn to nature than ever before. This helped to clear my mind and improve my mental health so much.

I still stayed in the tech loop (simply because I wanted to) through reading articles on Sara-approved sites and silently engaging in tech Twitter. I was particularly inspired by the women on the platform- many of them have accomplished so much and yet were still relatable. They never glossed over the hardships and discrimination that often come with working in tech, especially for women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. But they were working to change the space and educate their audiences through their work. In fact, it was the women of tech Twitter who slowly but surely showed me the fun of creating your own piece of work. No matter what their work was- a website, a blog, a guide for job interviews (which I used myself and can vouch for!)- I could see the thought and care they put into their work and how it reflected their personalities and love for what they do.

Saraā€™s Renaissance!

Just recently, I felt the itch to create something after what had seemed like forever. I particularly wanted to get back into writing, but I didnā€™t want to limit myself to writing only about tech. My blog would be about anything I wanted. Some of my favorite blogs donā€™t talk about tech at all.

Acting on my urge to create, I researched blogs I really liked to see what frameworks were used to structure them. I noticed a lot of blogs I liked were created with Jekyll, a static site generator that can be easily customized and maintained through a CMS. Now I easily couldā€™ve kept using Substack, and I also considered Hashnode. But I was extra inspired to make something of my own for this project. So I took the plunge and followed this tutorial to get the site set up.

I was worried I would become discouraged after a while and drop the project, but I was actually excited to code this site! I made sure to keep it simple- I knew if I made it complicated the excitement could wane and I would again be stuck in unfinished project limbo. I worked on this site every day after work and on the weekends (that _especially_ should indicate how much I was enjoying this).

When it was finished, I felt so proud. I eagerly showed it to my bf when I published it to my domain, and immediately started working on new features to add to the site. In fact, I implemented dark mode 2 days after my site was first published. I plan to add more features in the future (like tags), so youā€™ll get to see the site evolve even more!

Even if I donā€™t create anything else this year, I will continue to be incredibly proud of this site. And maybe itā€™s because this site is my own, but I feel Iā€™ll be more likely to add content to it. When considering the structure for this site I wanted to make sure I could make it easy for myself to add content. To accomplish this, Iā€™ve separated my content into 2 categories:

With these 2 formats, I will be much more likely to post content consistently. And as far as content type, I plan on talking about anything that Iā€™m interested in. Besides tech, Iā€™d love to share my thoughts on video games, tv, movies, books, music, lifestyle, and pretty much anything I think is interesting. Hopefully my writing style will improve as time goes by as well.

As far as audience goes, Iā€™m not really expecting people to keep up with this (lol). But if someone does come across this site and finds anything I write about cool or interesting, thatā€™s absolutely a win for me!

Iā€™m so excited for this! 2021 wasnā€™t my year for creation, but so far 2022 is bright ā˜€ļø.

-S