Spring break brought me a little relief! I’m curious if others are feeling this, but just one little thing off of my plate opens up SO much room.

This week I played catch up.

I caught my breath, I looked at what’s ahead and I made a plan. And I was reminded that sometimes, that is enough — even if we are behind, and even if we wanted to have accomplished or completed more by now.

I’m behind on front-end development. I know this is true. I also feel confident in my ability to get our project to a good place by the finish line. I was reminded of this when I sat down to record a question to send to Tasha about the way that Wax handles page routing. In the process of explaining the thing I was trying to figure out, I talked myself in to a fuller understanding of the way Wax works. In programming, we call this “rubber ducking,” the idea being that even if you talk things out to an inanimate object, like a rubber duck, you will understand the problem in a new way.

It was a helpful reminder that solutions are often simple and, inevitably, “the work is done by doing” (which is something I read online once cited as being an Afghan proverb, a fact I’ve not yet been able to corroborate, and despite all that a mantra of mine that I often return to). The work is done by doing… even if that work happens at a slower pace or different timeline than we think it should.

I’m in awe of my teammates who have been able to be consistent in their own work and gracious with me when I have fallen short this semester. I’m not used to being the one falling short, and their empathy has been an invitation to try to return to and meet my own standards.

I’m learning a lot from this work, even if it hasn’t always felt good.