When someone decides they no longer want you in their home, there isn’t much you can do. You can try to put up a fight or reason with them but ultimately, you have to leave or things can get pretty ugly, pretty fast. This happened to me during the “Unmentionable Year.” I was living with an older family member and due to reasons they'll never explain, I was told to get out.

The Thursday before Memorial Day Weekend.

In the middle of a pandemic.

With no job.

In Atlanta, GA. Yes, THAT Atlanta, GA.

I was fortunate in several ways:

- My beat-up Saturn still had some life in her so I could transport the few possessions I owned.

- I had another family member living in the area who had enough space to let me gather my thoughts and things over the holiday weekend.

- I got all the stimmies!

- My current S/O/s family, who likes me & let me stay with them until I found housing and employment again.

All these things combined kept me off the streets and allowed me to really ponder on what I wanted to do moving forward. As I watched and was forever changed by the June 2020 Uprising via Twitter and Reddit that was sparked by George Floyd and Breona Taylor’s murders, I was in a fog. I had no idea what I wanted to do or be. My trust in my family was broken and depression kicking my ass was an understatement. Before I could finalize the decision to start pawning everything, moving to Idaho, and starting completely over, one of my S/Os family members started talking to me about the tech industry. They were recently retired from the military and were looking to use the tech knowledge they’d gained to transition to a civilian job.

I was skeptical at first. I’m attracted to art and creating/growing things from scratch. How the hell would I fit in the tech industry? They convinced me that my skills related to 15+ years in customer service and administrative work would translate to being organized and keeping up in fast-paced environments. After they told me I got to make things from scratch, my “Oh really?” antenna was raised and ready for the signals. What made me a believer was the fact that every resource this magical tech guy gave was free! I was in awe! How in the fuck did he find all these things?! How did he get so good at this?! My curiosity got the better of me and I was sold. Once I received the link, I was in!

That guy is Leon Noel and he’s pretty awesome! The week I’m submitting this is the final week of the first year of his free boot camp #100Devs. It's also almost the 1 year anniversary of me learning of him and getting started with the basics.

There have been some hiccups along the way; a double shot of Imposter Syndrome mixed with equal parts Anxiety & Depression. But, I refuse to give up, which brought me to another free resource: Hashnode. Creating journal entries about my journey is something I used to do in middle and high school so why not pick it back up? It’s a little different to think of it as an article entry so everyone gets to read them but I want to pay it forward. If someone can learn from my experience, I’d be more than happy to keep telling my story. It was a great stress reliever then so if it ain't broke...

Although I have a long way to go with coding and expanding my creativity, I feel confident in saying I’m not where I was and I have no intentions of looking back. Therapy and trying my best to meet more people to expand the tiny tribe of reliable friends I have is going to be a long, curvy road but I think it’s worth it.

The major lesson that I would take from 2020 is a modification to one of my favorite quotes:

The village that raised you isn’t always the one that you belong to.

I learned that lesson in one of the worst ways but it’s one I’ll never have to do spaced repetition on. The village you find is irreplaceable; never let it go! Some of your villages may have awesome people who know how to live off the land. Others might be full of people who are crazy good in the medical field. However you find it, make sure you continue to grow and reach out to the people in it. There are still good people out there, no matter all the craziness social media dumps into our brains every day. Don’t fight it; take it in and learn the lesson well.