'I can't hear the protestations from over there'
Prior to this I'd been... accused of being a geek? Identified as being a geek? I was talking about dragon spawn points beneath desks, a thought process kicked off by meeting a dragon fairy landing on us at work and the dragon fairy apparently being gender neutral but bringing along a baby dragon with it.
I used to never think about geek. Never used to need to quantify it or put it under the microscope. I just was. Sometimes I'd meet other geeky girls, briefly our paths would across, and then they'd diverge again.
Then I had to work with 'normal' people for ages. Ages and ages. And the fun, curious, silly, laughter giving bit of me disappeared and got locked into a box because it wasn't appropriate, it didn't fit, and it wasn't appreciated.
I didn't twig until Tuesday this week that that person who actually has a sense of humour, and an ability to laugh, and an increasing sense of not caring, actually, whether anyone else could keep up with the random imagination and subject jumps and the constant playing with things was coming back. The trick is, there's a time and a place. But increasingly, I don't want to be in a time or place where it's not okay to just be me. What does it matter if shit gets done? What does it matter if I'm happy and not winding up other people or upsetting them, because I'm relaxed and happy and not stressing about missing signals or signs or not knowing the rules.
I'm a simple girl. I like to marvel at things. I like shiny things, twinkly things, pretty things, interesting and curious things. I want to be blown away by the amazingness of things, but I also want to be absorbed by their intricacy. I think too much, and don't think at all.
So the single issue for me, ultimately, is what do I do, what profession do I choose, which will allow me to be me. Just me. Bit silly, bit random, bit disruptive. But only when I'm relaxed enough in my working environment to be those things. Only when I trust the people around me to be okay with me with my walls down. And I think the only bits of life where everyone knows who Joss Whedon is, and quote off's are regular happenings, where having strange hobbies is normal and wanting to make all the things in the entire world is positively encouraged, are the ones other geeks are drawn to too.
So I'm going to learn to code. One hopes it's a more successful endeavour than the one where the author of the llama book sent me the llama book. Hopefully I'll be okay at it. If I'm really lucky, I'll be good at it. But I don't know how else I get to build shit and get to be me doing it.
I appear to be owing GDS an awful lot. Finding myself wasn't on the list. I hadn't actually noticed I was missing.
