I am so glad this blog exists, I am so happy I renamed it.
Because everything right now is dedicated to Anna.
Last night I went to an event that I hoped would replace Tuttle in my life. Tuttle was a weekly two hour slot in London, in various places throughout its history. It was very unstructured and somehow attracted all the best people. (And because of that, also some of the worst, but that will be a story for another day.)
I haven’t found a vibe like this in Rostock, so when I found Altow Digital Innovation I was very glad. For one thing, they tried to host a Rust meetup and Anna was part of Rust, ever since she coined the name turbofish. They also talk about the hard bits of digital. So I had an initial meeting with them and introduced myself a few weeks ago.
And me introducing myself always means me introducing Anna and what she meant, to me, to the Rust community, and to what I am doing now. I don’t always talk like this. In my current paid job, only three people know about me grieving at all. But these situations where we talk about intention, I open myself up, and just trust.
So last night was this event.
It ended up being a workshop, led by a charismatic coach.
The workshop was about conflict. And normally, the conflict-laden clinic situation I was in while I cared for Anna while she was being treated isn’t at all in the forefront of my mind anymore now that I am working. But last night, some words came up that brought it all back, so I ended up reflecting on that. And then Glasl’s nice stages of conflict escalation came up. And I saw Anna deteriorating and then the ultimate loss.
And then I reflected a bit more about my actions and how I fought an impossible battle for two and a half years, and I put my hand up and said “I have these skills. But none of this helps you if you’re not being heard.” Someone else chimed in and said power is definitely a factor in how we are able to deal, or not, with conflict.
We can’t hold our own if we’re not in the room.
I also said this workshop wasn’t helping me in this moment in my life, was encouraged to talk a bit about why, so talked about Anna and left.
Three people came out with me for support, there were tears, there were hugs (probably the best, tightest hug I’ve had since I haven’t had Anna’s hugs), and I went home and slept.
I think I learned something quite meaningful. Maybe what I’ve seen again and again in this town, all these bosses being so hands-off and aloof, is the influence of these gurus. Care less. Om. And now even our networking is like this. We’re bad at unstructured being, we just don’t have the social skills up here, so we let these coaches run our togetherness.
They promise to solve all our problems by self-mastery.
I’ve trained my whole life for the arguments I am going to have now.