Ever since I quit my part-time jobs — yes, plural, because apparently I thought collecting job experiences like Pokémon was a personality trait — life has gone a bit… quiet. And not the peaceful, aesthetic, Pinterest-kind-of quiet. More like the “Wow, I haven’t spoken to a human being today except the Tesco self-checkout machine” kind of quiet. It’s been strange. See, even though my part-time jobs were exhausting and sometimes chaotic (looking at you, 12-hour hospitality shifts), at least they involved *people*. Interactions. Noise. A bit of laughter. A bit of shouting. A bit of “why is this customer fighting over ketchup?” But in their own weird way, they kept me grounded and motivated enough to look forward to the actual tech work I was doing on the side.

Switching to doing my remote job full time was supposed to feel like a glow-up. And don’t get me wrong — it’s still a step forward. It’s still related to my domain (well… more than my part-times were, anyway 😅). It’s humbling, aligned with my goals, and something I genuinely do enjoy. But let me tell you, when you suddenly remove all your IRL interactions and swap them for daily Zoom calls and Slack messages, life becomes extremely quiet. Get it? Quiet… quite… uh… never mind 🥲.

  Days pass slowly, but the calendar flips so fast it feels like someone is speed-running my life in the background. One minute it’s Monday morning, the next minute it’s Sunday night, and I’m wondering where the week went and why my laundry pile looks like a mountain I’m emotionally not prepared to climb.

On top of that, we’re officially in the gloomy winter/rainy season. So now, every time I glance out of the window, it’s either raining, about to rain, or aggressively thinking about raining. The sun? Haven’t seen him in weeks. I hope he’s doing okay. Daylight Saving Time (DST) also decided to jump-scare me, shifting the clocks and making the time difference between the UK and home even more chaotic. Calling friends or family at the “right moment” has become a mathematical challenge worthy of a LeetCode medium problem.

Meanwhile, my sleep schedule? Absolutely feral. Sometimes it behaves and pretends to fix itself, and then two days later I’m wide awake at 4 AM contemplating life decisions and scrolling YouTube like I’m researching for a PhD thesis in procrastination. I’ve also gained weight — which I’m blaming on the lack of walking, the cold weather, the emotional snacking, the job-hunting depression, and also just good old genetics (why not).

And yes — the job market is still doing its thing… by which I mean *rejecting me like it’s a competitive sport.* Sometimes the rejection emails don’t even bother sugar-coating anymore. They’re like “we regret to inform you” and I’m like “same, bro… same.”

🌧️ The Rut Era (But With a Light Switch Somewhere)

But here’s the thing — being in a rut isn’t always as dramatic as it sounds. Sometimes it’s just life slowing down, forcing you to notice things you’ve been ignoring. It’s humbling, frustrating, funny at times, and yes, a little bit sad, but manageable. Humans aren’t productivity robots, and sometimes you just need a season of nothingness to reset. And to be fair, there *are* small bright spots. Like the fact that I finally get to go to Comic Con — which, depending on how you see it, is either the highlight of the season or further proof that I have no social life outside fictional universes. But hey, I’m choosing to take that as a win.