This juncture of learning is growing me in interesting ways. I am finding the ability to exercise autonomy without feeling guilty. Constantly presenting myself with the question: What are you going to do? It is quite a courageous action for me.

Normally I would look to sources outside of me. Always making sure I wasn't making too much noise. I had a strange belief that if I suppressed my own desires and needs for the people around me, somehow the world would love me more and be kinder.

This new adventure of carving out a career at 52 doesn't allow for many apologies. Shaking loose the constraints of acceptable behavior and the need to be thought of as a "good girl," is crashing and burning fast.

As a 52-year-old woman, why the fuck do I care what other people think? I am awakening to reality, it just doesn't matter. I literally have the right to have as much of life as I am willing to indulge.

I am breaking free from the fallacy I created through not wanting others to be angry with me, being exposed to abusive people and the social norms of how a respectable woman should behave. I am literally challenging everything. It's a precarious position to have more questions than answers.

Yet if I am honest with myself, and yes, I am always honest with myself. And let me tell you, it isn't always fucking pretty. At times it is rather painful, but it cleans up real good and allows me to love myself more. If am honest with myself about the time I wasted caring about what others thought of me and containing myself if flawed beliefs, I simply shit away opportunities and the freedom of self-expression.

I am extremely grateful for code. It is an enormous tool that is changing me and pushing my ideas about social norms and my place in this world.

With these words, I bid you...

Good night