If you're like me, you're on your last submittable retrospective of a 6ish month coding bootcamp.

If you're like me that bootcamp is called Lambda School of Computercraft and Codery.

If you're like me, that means you've probably lost a job, got a job, lost a job, secured a new job, lost that job because of a pandemic, lost your health insurance twice during that time, went on unemployment during this time, lost your unemployment during this time, and survived the highest hazardous air quality ever.

If you're like me, sitting in your kitchen drinking a hot cup of coffee, smacking a fruit fly from the air, you're surely thinking, "Alright, I made it to this point now what?"

I'll admit, that came out a bit more dramatic than I meant for it to sound. The thing about trying to make drastic changes is that it feels like an impossible task.

I know I'm in a better spot. Now poised to enter into a new career that can potentially make it so rent is easier to come up with. Lingering, though, is the sense of not knowing if you're good enough, know enough, capable, or just going to be lucky enough.

That's a pretty scary load, so instead I'm going to try to do something I never do.

Focusing on what I've accomplished and work towards new things.

Currently, I'm working on my portfolio. (Yes, I know, I should have had this done already.)
I had an idea a night or two ago to make my portfolio interactive by dragging and dropping icons into a launch zone to make modals pop up showing the corresponding information.

The reason I bring this up, is because 6 months ago I'd never of been able to articulate what I wanted to do in a way that would allow me to research and figure out how to do that. Manipulating the state, using useEffect, adding eventListeners? These are normal everyday things now, but ask me a couple months ago what they meant and I'd of made up something silly to catch a chuckle.

On a whim I wanted to make this feature, just because I could. And it's working.

Well, almost
I'm still working on it, and isn't that the best part? I get to spend the day building something, which is awesome.

What makes it so awesome is that I have these new skills and abilities that I've acquired and its not even close to the end of learning. Imagine how boring it would be to just know all the things.

That's how I know that I'll be okay and have found a career path that makes sense for me. Even on my worst days, I can always find solace in the fact that just being curious is part of the job requirements. I've got an endless supply of curiosity.

So when I ask "What's next?" The answer isn't as easy as saying "Job, house, money", though those would be very nice. Maybe just accepting that I don't know what is next, but can find the answers if I apply myself - just like learning to write code - I can move the dial towards "next".