Leonardo and Any Ideas for Collaboration?

I am currently reading the biography of Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. What I really find interesting about Leonardo is how much he collaborated with others and how much he sought out knowledge from others to bolster his own knowledge gained through astute observation. We tend to think of Leonardo as this divinely inspired genius who just had this innate talent for learning everything and being a master at anything he tried. He certainly was a genius, and he had incredible God-given talents. However, he sought out knowledge, he sought to quench an inexhaustible curiosity by studying the works of others, directly interviewing craftsmen and other artists, and through direct collaboration with other people many of whom knew quite a bit more than he in their respective fields. Apparently Leonardo wasn't all that great at math, especially algebra and trigonometry. (Granted Europeans generally didn't know much about trigonometry in Leonardo's time.) He failed to teach himself Latin. Duolingo wasn't widely available then either. He did, however, possess a gift for greatly raising the bar when building upon the works of others.

I was really struck by the story of the Vitruvian Man drawing. You know the one: muscular naked guy circumscribed by a circle and boxed in by a perfect square demonstrating the proportions of the human body. A little aside: it's likely that Leonardo was his own model for this, and muscular naked guy is a beardless, fit Leonardo. Or at least a close likeness. Vitruvius was a first century Roman general and architect who in describing how to build buildings said that the Romans should use human proportions as ratios for how wide and tall and deep things should be. Then he laid out what those proportions should be. Things like a man's armspan is the same as his height and his foot is exactly one-sixth of his height. Leonardo and his amigos began talking about this when they were coming up with diagrams for a church, and they all took a swing at drawing Vitruvian man. Leonardo's made the others look like grade schoolers' by comparison. It was the collaboration that struck me, though. One of his other compadres put the circle offset from the square, which is something Leonardo then copied. Isaacson also wrote the biography of Steve Jobs and said that collaboration was the reason that Jobs had open areas built into the offices at Apple.

I thought about that in relation to the virtual workspace we are in now. One thing I really missed about going into the office during the pandemic was the conversation that was had outside of meetings. I missed overhearing a couple colleagues talking about some proposed solution and either being able to contribute myself or just listen in to follow some new train of thought. I missed ad hoc whiteboarding in the hallways of proposed solutions. Reading about Leonardo and how he learned and evolved his ideas with input from so many different people reminded me of this excellent keynote given by Jessica Kerr on symmathesy. Interestingly it was also focused on Florentines, just about a century after Leonardo was doing his thing.

What are we doing or what can be done to bring great minds (or even good or average minds) together to collaborate like this in today's age of working remotely from home? Why do we get enraged that Elon Musk wants his workforce back in the office? My money says Steve Jobs would have done the same thing. Don't get me wrong! I am a big proponent of working from the beach! How do we get that same collaboration without requiring everyone to be in office, though?

A Thank You Note

It's that time of year where we take a moment and think on those things for which we are grateful. It has been a challenging year for me, but I realize especially in the past several weeks that I have so much to be thankful for. So I thought I'd get my gratefulness written out.'

First and foremost I am thankful for my family. My mother and brother Rob have been here through what has been the darkest time of my life. I really appreciate Rob giving me a place to stay through this as well as balancing that line of letting me rest and heal on one hand and getting my butt out of bed to work or go to the gym rather than wallowing all day on the other. Of course my whole family has been there for me and I feel the love and support from everyone including Jen's family. Our trip to Daytona with them has to be a highlight of this year. If there has been a silver lining to any of this, it has been that it helped me reconnect with my youngest brother Billy that I really needed.

Of course my closest family is Jen and the boys, and they are key to me getting better as well. The boys have grown into fine men, and I really appreciate the way they've made time in the past year to be with us on vacation, but also the times they have even just dropped by the house. And what can I say about Jen? "In good times and bad.. In sickness and health," has really been pushed to the extreme this year. I'm looking forward to getting back home and starting the rest of my life with her.

I am grateful for all my wonderful friends. My social network collapsed with my promotion to manager and then the pandemic. The pandemic has been so difficult on the social networks for so many of us. I felt very lonely and isolated at times. I have had so many great friends reach out lately, some of which I haven't spoken to in so long. I want my friends to all know that I love them regardless of how frequently or infrequently we talk. I want them also to know that I am here for them as well. I want to promise to always be there, though I know I need to rebuild trust in my promises. 

Acquaintances. A special shout out of gratitude to everyone who reached out some of whom I barely know and many whom I've never met in "real life". I savor every note of encouragement. Seriously, even the smallest, "Hang in there," is so appreciated. A special note to the Firehouse community: I am so grateful I get to be associated with you all. When I say that I need to rebuild my social network I am looking straight at you and can't wait to attend some fun events in 2023. 

I am grateful for AA, especially the Lily Gulch group down here in Littleton. I think if you are an alcoholic trying to recover, you need a community. It is simply too much to rely on oneself or even one other person. It really helps to surround oneself with many people who will support one's sobriety. It also helps to know that at almost any time there is a room of people somewhere who will be there to support my sobriety without judgement.

Following on that, I am thankful that I have a Higher Power. Though I am merely human and do not understand my own purpose yet, I have faith that human life is purposeful because there is some greater Good. With a sober mind and mindful intent, I am optimistic that I will find my purpose. 

I am grateful I have a therapist who relates to me and offers sound advice. Whether I take that advice or not is totally on me! We're making progress. It may be ten steps forward before alcohol sends me nine back, but it's progress. (And I do realize it isn't alcohol that is the problem, but it is my choosing to drink the alcohol that is the problem!) I also appreciated my group therapy group. I am sure you have heard the saying "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." My IOP group epitomized that saying. There were folks from their early twenties to their late 70s. There were manual laborers, those of us tech professionals, and a heart-breaking number of nurses. I cannot over-emphasize the devastation on people's mental health that the pandemic policies that isolated us have had. I have so much appreciation for the mental health professionals out there working to repair us!

I have to give gratitude for my little dog, though he would probably prefer shredded chicken. I will never get to hold my own child, but when I think on how much I love Buck and how happy he can make me, I begin to understand how parents must love their children. He's just a dog. I can only imagine how a child who had the best parts of both Jen and I would capture my heart. How Buck anchors me in this world, though, is something I  cannot express without people realizing I am completely cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I have to give a mention for William Butler Fish, who is doing great having me close by so much of the time, and to the chickens who made me breakfast over the past year, God rest their little chicken souls.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

On Failure

I wrote a long journal entry yesterday about my feelings being laid off from Nordstrom. It was fueled by a LinkedIn post related to the mass tech layoffs that occurred recently particularly the ones by Twitter and Meta, in which the author said, If you've been laid-off, realize that is a failure of the company you were working for, not you. It made me think of Robin Williams as the therapist in "Good Will Hunting" telling Will, "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." I must have watched that clip two-dozen times in the days following being laid off in an effort to make myself believe it wasn't my fault the way things ended there. I am just beginning now to really believe that.

Without going into the details I did in the blog post, I am realizing that what led me to being let go after almost seven years of doing the best I could do in that job, was not my fault at all. If you know me at all, you know I read a lot. (My brother argues that listening to audiobooks shouldn't count towards my book count, but he's wrong.) I read everything I can get my hands on including a lot of managerial-type books, and I had realized before that what was going on within my organization at Nordstrom contradicted so much of what I read, even those books that my vice president herself had given us to read. You can't tout radical candor, which according to the author of Radical Candor, Kim Scott, is equal parts "Challenge Directly" and "Care Personally", if you avoid any sort of direct challenge and do not care personally for those you support. In his book Drive, Daniel Pink lays out the three elements of drive, of personal motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If you give your subordinates no autonomy, no chance at any sort of mastery in their work, and provide no vision, no purpose for the work is it any wonder that they might feel disengaged from that work?

When I was let go I initially felt like the biggest failure. My self-esteem was already not good and had been further ground down by months of doing all I could to keep projects on track and keep improving while my team was slashed in half and never receiving any sort of encouragement from my superiors. I also did not have the tools for self-compassion and was not using the tools I had learned previously to help deal with the situation. That was a tough lesson for me and one I will not need to learn again.

Some company is going to give me that shot, is going to give me that autonomy, allow me opportunities and encourage me to master my skills, and provide a clear purpose for the work we do. And I'm going to do incredible things for that company and for the team I get to work with.

Mindfulness

I mentioned mindfulness in an earlier post. I truly believe that mindfulness is key to my mental health. Mindfulness is not just a key practice in my spirituality but also in the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) that I am working on.

So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is very simply the practice of being fully present in the present moment. You may have heard the saying that depression arises from worrying about the past and anxiety arises from worrying about the future. If you suffer from either or both of these then you probably know the relief you feel when you are so engaged in some activity that your mind must focus on the present, and for even a moment you are given a reprieve from thinking about your past or future. For me, when I play basketball, which I used to do a lot more than I currently do, I get so focused on the game and what I am doing that I forget about everything else. Nowadays a really good book can also give me that bit of escape from my own worries.

Most of the time, however, we do not usually have the sort of time to escape from life either through a good book or a basketball game. We have things we need to get done, life events and obligations that must be addressed. So how can we stay grounded in the present moment so that we do not become overwhelmed by thoughts about the past and future? I will put forth a few practices that I use and that you might try. 

The most basic mindfulness practice that is taught and is always available is paying attention to your own breath. Paying attention to your breath does not mean changing how you are breathing, but simply recognizing each breath that you take. Feeling each breath come into your body and then as it leaves your body. You might focus on a place in your body where you feel that breath, as it passes your nostrils or as it fills your chest. There is no need to count the breaths. Just take a moment to close your eyes and pay attention to your breath. Feel each one arise, feel it enter your body, and feel it leave your body. Do this for one minute.

Once you are practiced at paying attention to your breath like this for a minute or more, you might look into meditation. A simple meditation is simply being in a comfortable position and paying attention to your breath as you just did. You need not worry about "emptying your mind" or "thinking about nothing". Thoughts will arise, but when your focus is on your next breath, they will quickly and quietly fade into the background.

There is another skill I use that does involve changing up how you are breathing. With this one I concentrate on inhaling for four counts and exhaling for six counts. It feels slightly uncomfortable to exhale for longer than I inhale and takes a bit of effort, that extra bit of focus that keeps me grounded in the present moment. A minute or two of this is usually enough for those negative thoughts that I had been thinking to fade into the background.

Another activity I like to use is to give my brain a challenging task. Perhaps it is multiplying two three-digit numbers in my head. I really like those mindfulness coloring books, the ones with mandalas or animals or scenery made up of little geometric shapes. I use my left hand, which is my off hand, to color in the shapes. It takes concentration. Another thing you might try if you do not have a coloring book in front of you but have some other printed material at hand is to fill in all the o's and g's and parts of other letters where a space is enclosed by the letter.

One final skill that helps me focus and is quite relaxing is to do muscle relaxation. Starting with my feet I tense up muscles for several counts and then allow them to relax. Once I have moved all the way up to my head I feel more grounded and relatively more relaxed. You begin this by scrunching up your toes and holding it for several seconds and then allow those muscles to relax. Then try and tense your calf muscles and allow those to relax. Then your thighs, your butt, your abdomen, your hands, biceps, shoulders, neck, mouth (smile really big and then relax!), and finally scrunch up your forehead and let that relax.

Each of these skills is usually readily available and can bring you back to the present moment when worry, either about the future or the past, begins to creep up.

Make Your Bed and Don't Ring the Bell

I am really, really sad, and no it doesn't have anything to do with election day. It is still 3pm local time as I'm writing this, and polls aren't closed on the east coast even yet. I'm mourning some things. I began reading, well, listening to, Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. I'm not too far in, but I'm assuming it recounts the year of her life after the death of her beloved husband. In it I recognize my own grief and that I too am in mourning.

I'm in mourning for a life that I never really had, though. I'm in mourning for the way things might have been. The best friend I might have had. The perfect marriage I might be enjoying. The purposeful job that would make me spring from my bed. Joan Didion had a husband she loved, a sort of shred career she loved, a child who lost her father. Lots to mourn. Ashes she could bury. Memories she would savor the rest of her life. I have memories I want to erase.

I will not be mourning for the person I was, though I would take a whole lot of joy in cremating and burying him. I hate that person. Maybe that is why I have so much shame. Because even as I loathed that person I continued to let him live inside of me. Why do I have this hatred of who I was only last week? I'm not sure I even came upon the realization until the past couple days, but I am finding out why now. That former me lived with no core values.

Core beliefs and core values. "Core" means they are at the heart of something; they are at the heart of our thoughts and behaviors. A video we watched in IOP described our core beliefs as the lens through which we see the world. If you see the world as a generally safe place, you will greet the stranger walking toward you on an empty street. If you see the world as a dangerous place, you may cross the street. Core beliefs aren't necessarily positive. I see myself as an intelligent and compassionate person. I also believe myself to be a lying, selfish, perfectionist imposter who has a ton of God-given talent and yet makes no positive impact on the world. Core beliefs can be pretty rough.

Then yesterday in IOP we began an examination of our core values. Now, core values are generally positive, but it doesn't mean we always live up to our own values. Our therapist played the following video for us. You may have seen it as it is from 2014 and made quite a stir for a bit. https://youtu.be/yaQZFhrW0fU I'd love for you to take the time now to watch it if you have the time. It's about twenty minutes long. Please check it out later if you haven't time now and haven't already seen it.

I had heard about the speech before and had always meant to go watch it just on the line "Make Your Bed". Jen always insists on making the bed. I hardly ever did it if left to my devices, though I understood the lesson. Take care of the little things. Then worry about the bigger things. Plus it being the first task of the day, it gets the ball rolling on the rest of the day. I feel like the author of Atomic Habits must have talked about the speech. I'll come back to Atomic Habits at some point. What I wasn't ready for were the other nine lessons in the speech.

The second lesson is to find someone to help you paddle. I guess it really shouldn't be summarized as find someONE to help you paddle. You need a team. This world is too much for just two people in a boat. You need a team. I hadn't put together a team to help me. 

There are a couple lessons in there about overcoming failure with determination that reminded me of No Mud, No Lotus and embracing suffering. I wonder if Buddhists make it through SEAL training at a greater rate than other religions. I wonder if any Buddhists actually go to SEAL training. Thought: Do Buddhists make the best warriors? I can still make myself laugh even now.

The sixth lesson is about taking risks to achieve something meaningful. I am not generally a risk-taker. Sober me isn't anyway. Like I said, I believe I need to be perfect; therefore, I don't extend myself like I believe I should. I don't put my neck too much on the line. I try to avoid getting anyone upset with me. So I hide. I do not let people get in touch with the real me in case they do not like the real me too much. I hide my thoughts and actions that others might get upset about. Thus a perfectionist, lying, phony. And at this point watching the video I feel like this speaker is taking dead aim at me.

Seventh lesson - deal with the sharks and don't run away from them. (By the way, my brother and I just watched a segment on sharks. They don't circle you. You won't know a shark is there until you are being attacked. Then punch it in the nose!) If you all only knew how much the shark imagery reverberated with me. "He is speaking to me!" I might have been wearing my shark socks or boxers! (I was wearing duck boxers, but still...) I wish I had dealt with the sharks at Nordstrom better. I let them run me off. Would it have been worth being fired over rather than laid off? I don't know. I feel bad for the good people left though out there swimming as the sharks circle...

Eighth lesson - Be your best at the darkest moments. At this point in group therapy I have tears starting. Also realize I am in a room of 20 and 30 - somethings. Men my age with my problems don't go to group therapy unless it is court-ordered. (Btw, mine is NOT. I'm just weird.) Many, many men with my problems don't make it to be my age or just give in to the bottle and divorce and drugs. Anyway, so now this naval officer is admonishing me that I need to be my best at the darkest times, and all I can think of is how when things got bad I gave up. That old me did not have any sort of personal values that kept him going for him.

Ninth - the power of hope and singing when you are up to your neck in mud. I have to admit that even now I have very, very little hope of anything. I honestly cannot let myself look too far ahead. I am trying to deal with the right here and now. If I were looking ahead I would not be publishing these thoughts to a public forum. I do not have a job yet and who wants a perfectionist, lying phony? My only choice is going to be to run for public office at some point. I am right up to my fucking neck in mud and it is hours and hours before dawn. And the only songs that come to my mind are the horribly sad songs.

And when he got to the last lesson: Never, ever ring the bell, I fucking lost it and left the room. We talk today about being triggered and on one side of society's ideological fence it gets a ton of importance and on the other side talk of people being triggered is dismissed with words like "snowflake". I understand now being triggered. I don't remember much about my suicide attempt, but the images I do have in my head are horrifying. Like being in an actual horror movie that you cannot escape from. At the same time, I have learned some skills to cope with emotional distress. Go to the rest room, do some deep breathing, throw some cold water on your face. We don't need "safe spaces for snowflakes"; we need to teach our young people coping skills. But still today I have had that line in my head all day, "Never, ever ring the bell." 

Never, ever ring that fucking bell. Stick to your values, and Do Not Give Up! I am begging you: Whatever it is that you are thinking about, if it is important to you, do not give up on it.

Trying to Sleep in a Muddy Foxhole

I went to bed last night wishing I could just get in a time machine and go back several weeks. That's progress. For the preceding three weeks I either didn't sleep or went to sleep hoping I wouldn't wake up in the morning. Right now I know it will be difficult for me to sleep tonight. I am feeling an awful lot like I hope I don't wake up in the morning right now. I am also trying to remain mindful, though, to focus on this very moment and each successive moment and not worry about either the future or the past.

I am reading No Mud, No Lotus by Thich Nhat Hanh. He was a Buddhist monk. I highly recommend reading anything by him. The premise of this book is embracing suffering, as that leads to happiness. Just as a lotus cannot grow on a marble slab, we need mud in our lives, ie. suffering, in order to experience happiness. The key is mindfulness, being in touch with this very moment and examining it without judgement. What we are learning in my Intensive Outpaitent program is very similar - being mindful, examining how we feel without judgement. I plan on writing more about mindfulness in the next few days.

I had told my therapist before that Alcoholics Anonymous is not my kind of religion, but as the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes. And, brother, there are bullets whizzing by me in the form of cravings for alcohol. So tonight was my second night in a row of AA. If you want to stop drinking, it's a great place to start. For my alcoholic friends who kicked it without the help of AA, I would also encourage you to attend at least one meeting. You may find there is someone there like me who really could be inspired by you and your story. It helped me yesterday and tonight to hear people's stories, to see people, young and old, a lot like me, relatively normal folk who just have no mastery over alcohol. It also hurts me a bit to see people getting their six-month chips knowing I had done almost seven months before I blew it all up. Those people were all on day 5 at one time though too. I have been on day five Lord knows how many times! One day at a time. One moment at a time.

Check on Your Managers! We are Not Okay!

In dealing with my current issues I have had to turn to my social support system, the friends and family who love me and care about me. I can barely get out of bed in the morning let alone schedule doctor's appointments and job interviews and get myself to therapy. I've been really encouraged, though, by the people who have reached out, and I want to turn a sad story into a success story.

As I think I this support system what stands out is how much I have isolated myself over the past several years. It certainly is no coincidence that this corresponds to the Covid pandemic and working from home. However, I think it began even earlier when I moved into a management role. I feel like the manager role can intrinsically be a lonely one if measures are not taken. As I said in an earlier post, I believe the measures are there in work I have already done in therapy and in DBT, but they can be easily forgotten if not regularly practiced. I intend to write more here about those DBT skills and how they relate to work in order to do my own practice of them and maybe to help some others out there.

I was thinking on how I have not made new friends in several years. When I was out drinking and carousing with my engineering peers, it was easier to get past my own social anxiety, have fun, and make friends. Some of those friendships even stuck. When I moved into a management role, though, I certainly was not going to do any carousing, and I really limited how much drinking I would do, already knowing my propensity to overindulge at times. I did not want anyone I supported to see me inebriated. It became even more difficult when I gave up drinking as I could not get past the social anxiety enough to open up to people. 

Now I know all other managers out there are not depressive alcoholics with severe social anxiety, but I do believe that in that manager role you have fewer work peers and those peers you do have are incredibly busy. I think back on the halcyon days of playing foosball or ping-pong at work! Now, no one has that kind of time anymore even when we were still all in the office. I regret now not reaching out to my manager peers at Nordstrom socially more.

I will also say, it was nice, especially in an environment where I was getting no feedback back from my boss, to hear from someone I was supporting as a manager, "Hey, I know it can be a rough job, but I think you're doing a great job." My team and those people I worked with every day - those are the people who knew what kind of job I did and that feedback was very motivating, inspiring. 

So, today's lesson is if your manager is doing a good job, let them know it. It can otherwise be a very thankless job at times. Despite the provocative title, your manager is probably really okay but will appreciate it nonetheless.

Seen Better Days

**** Trigger Warning for Suicidal Ideation ****

I'm back. It's been a bit of a long layoff for me from writing. I want to dive right back in, and I really want to make better use of my blogs and hopefully get to some interesting things, but for the moment, I need to get this out of the way so that you all have some context of where I am.

When we last talked I was probably still gainfully employed by Nordstrom. Apparently more for my gain than for theirs because I was let go the day after Florida got clobbered with Hurricane Ian. I think that maybe I will expand on that a bit further later. In fact, I believe I already have something written out that I was waiting to post. Technically, my last day is November first, and I would rather not jeopardize the last few days I have on the payroll.

So, being in a hurricane (okay, technically it was just a tropical storm at that point when it passed directly over Cape Canaveral with its 60mph+ sustained winds) was one of the least exciting things to happen in the past month. I created a little tempest of my very own. Looking back now I can say that I lost track of the things that are really important and forgot a lot of the therapy that had helped me so much over the previous two years. I only saw myself.

I would love to apologize to each and every person that I know and especially the ones I have hurt. Having a major depressive disorder and being an alcoholic are not things that people should need to apologize for any more than people getting cancer. However, even people with cancer can, and do, make hurtful decisions to others and for those decisions I consciously and willfully made that hurt others, I will apologize for and make amends.

First of all, I am safe now. As safe as anyone else who needs to drive the streets and highways of the Denver metro area. Secondly, I had another suicide attempt. I won't go into details now. Was it serious? I didn't hurl myself in front of a train, but I wanted to die. I was frustrated at just how difficult it was. I was also very, very drunk.

There was a jug of wine in our outside refrigerator that had been there for a very long time. Several years I think. I had been eyeing it. I knew, I knew, I knew, that if I tapped into that in the time that I did with Jen out of town and feeling the way that I did about my life, there would be a very good chance that I would not come out of it alive. And then I poured myself a drink from it.

To be frank, I wanted people at Nordstrom who had made the decision to let me go to hurt. That's why I did what I did. There are other factors that made me not happy with life, primarily generalized depression. I want to apologize to those people at Nordstrom, but again, I'm not going to apologize for being sick. There were things before that I wish had gone different and I apologize for not speaking up about that. I hope, though, that there is some sort of impression that I left with them and with my friends in the Thrive ERG that can help make a difference in the lives of Nordstrom employees who suffer from mental health issues. Erik Nordstrom, if you are reading (because that's what CEO's do. They read personal blogs all day.), please help lead the charge on improving the mental health of your employees!

I'm not living at home. Jen needs her space to sort through being hurt by me, by those conscious decisions I made as well as those depression made for me, as do I for myself to get better. My brother has been awesome in hosting me and in balancing my need to get out and be engaged in life and work as well as letting me convalesce.

I'm in an outpatient treatment for mental/behavioral health now. I've been through this three times already, and my very first night of this go-round I was just amazed at all the stuff that I had learned previously but had neglected to continue practicing. Like going to the gym for our physical health (something I need to start doing again!), we need to be practicing and exercising our mental health on a regular basis.

I'm writing this on Wednesday 10/26, and I am probably going to save publishing it until Monday 10/31 or Tuesday 11/1. I have an interview that I did with Amazon Web Services and the decision is set to be made next Monday. I would not want this post to affect that either way. And I suppose if I wait until 11/1 then Nordstrom can't let me go for cause either. It's sort of shitty that I have to hold my tongue on the internet for those reasons, but this is the age we live in.

--- Writing again later ---

I got too close to a good friend and ended up ruining that friendship and endangering my marriage. People have asked why. The truth is I don't know. I don't have a good answer for Jen nor anyone else. The only other thing that I want to say on the subject is that I miss my friend, very much, but I know she wants the best for me. What is best for me right now is to concentrate on my marriage. I also want to apologize for breaking my promise to her that I wouldn't hurt myself while she was out of the country. What can I say? I'm a liar.

I've hurt Jen too many times. She deserves better. She deserves someone who always puts her first and then her boys. I haven't done that. Of course I want the best for her, and I thought I could give that. But I have been selfish. I put myself ahead of her and at times put my job ahead of her. And I am so, so sorry for that. I hope she will want to keep me in her life forever. 

I did not get the AWS job. I am okay with that. It was not the right job for me, though I did all I could given the circumstances to come away with that job offer. I have several better things in the works. One of them is going to find out that I am the perfect fit for them.  

There are better days ahead.