Man, December 2022. That was a time, alright. When I saw that horoscope title, it just kinda clicked, you know? It got me thinking about everything I went through back then, how things felt. I was stuck, truly stuck, and that whole month felt like one big push to get out of a rut.
I remember feeling pretty low with my job. I was doing a bunch of data entry and support stuff for a small company. Every morning I’d drag myself to the desk, open up the same old spreadsheets, and just punch numbers in. It wasn’t just boring; it felt like I was going nowhere fast. The money was okay, I guess, just enough to cover bills, but it wasn’t enough to make me feel like I was building anything real. My manager was a good guy, but he was swamped too, so there wasn’t much mentorship or a path for growth. I’d look at my friends, some doing cool coding stuff, some traveling, and I just felt this heavy weight in my chest, like I was missing out on life, just watching it pass by.
The Breaking Point
One Tuesday morning, mid-December, I got this email. It was about some new software update, minor stuff, but it just tipped me over. I realized I’d rather be doing literally anything else than figure out how to update another piece of software that barely worked in the first place. That’s when it hit me. I couldn’t keep doing this. I had to shake things up. It wasn’t a sudden decision; it was more like a slow burn that finally caught fire.
I knew I needed a change, but what kind? I’d always tinkered with websites, just for fun, made a few simple ones for local businesses years ago. Nothing serious. But this time, I started thinking, “Could I actually make a living doing that?” It felt like a long shot, but the alternative was staying put, and that thought felt even worse.
Taking the Plunge
So, I started small. Every evening after work, instead of zoning out in front of the TV, I opened my old laptop. I dug up some free online courses about web development. HTML, CSS, a little bit of JavaScript – the basics. My brain felt rusty at first, like trying to remember something from high school. I’d watch these video tutorials, pause them, try to copy the code, and inevitably mess it up. Tons of errors, missing semicolons, tags not closing. It was frustrating as hell, I won’t lie. There were nights I just wanted to throw the laptop across the room and give up, thinking I was too old or too dumb for this tech stuff.
But then, something would click. A piece of code would finally run, a little animation would play, or a layout would look just right on the screen. And that feeling, that little win, it was addictive. It was like I was building something, not just processing it. I even started saving some of my work on GitHub, even if it was just simple practice projects. Didn’t know if anyone would ever look at it, but it felt good to organize my progress.
I also started talking to people. I reached out to a cousin who works in IT, just asking how he got into it, what resources he used. He gave me some practical advice, told me not to worry about being perfect, just keep building. That conversation was a huge boost. It made the whole thing feel less impossible.
The Grind Continued
December passed in a blur of spreadsheets by day and code editors by night. I was exhausted, no doubt about it. My eyes would be burning, and my brain felt fried. Sometimes I’d fall asleep right on the couch with the laptop still open. But the little wins kept me going. I finished a small project, a mock-up for a local coffee shop – just HTML and CSS, but it looked decent. I even showed it to the owner, just for kicks, and she seemed to like it. That gave me a real shot in the arm.
By the end of the month, I hadn’t quit my job, and I wasn’t a master coder overnight. Far from it. But I had started. I had taken the first steps. I had gathered some basic skills, built a couple of tiny projects, and most importantly, I had a direction. That heavy feeling I had in my chest? It was still there sometimes, but it was getting lighter. I wasn’t just punching numbers anymore; I was building something, even if it was small. It felt like I finally took control, you know?
