Wake-up: ~5 AM
In 1,600 · Out 1,995 · Net −395 · Protein 75g
~5 AM — Woke up in the Bay one last time and ate some Persian food before the day got going.
~6 AM — Had an AI interview for a Life Sciences position, and I really, really loved it. The person interviewing me is who I want to be — the version of myself I'm working toward. It's a little intimidating too, honestly, because the people who barely acknowledge me in my current role are basically her colleagues. Anyway, we'll see where it goes.
~9 AM — Went into the office and had a genuinely great meeting with my manager and my skip. Trying to stay above the line has actually been paying off — I felt like I reconnected with my skip after what's been a rough stretch between us. We ended up laughing about Key and Peele of all things, and he gave me solid advice on the HR situation I've been dealing with.
~1 PM — Drove my Volkswagen Atlas for the last time and let myself really sit in it and enjoy it, then headed to the airport and flew out to Chicago to see my brother.
The flight — Genuinely enjoyable, which I haven't been able to say about a flight in a long time.
~7 PM — My brother picked me up from the airport, we went back to his place, and then for about three hours the three of us — him, my sister-in-law, and me — ended up psychoanalyzing everyone in our family and basically our entire childhood. Fell asleep around 1 AM.
What I realized
- Loving an interview this much while also feeling a little intimidated by the world it belongs to isn't a contradiction — it's just what wanting something new actually feels like.
- Staying "above the line" with my skip worked, and it repaired something that had felt genuinely tense for a while.
- An ordinary flight being enjoyable again is a small but real sign that something in me has settled.
- Three hours of family psychoanalysis with my brother and sister-in-law somehow manages to be both hilarious and actually clarifying.
Debt paid: 1,325 / 262,500 — 0.50%