i just got laid off

Perhaps, "just" is a belated use of the expression--it's been about six weeks since axios laid off half the visuals team. Each day brings a new rollercoaster of possibility, anxiety, and adhd hobbies. Overall, I'm grateful for the community of people around me who have imparted words of support/rage and freelance/job opportunities. For now, I'm trying to leave myself open to possible chain reactions.

I'm in no rush to commit to a new full-time role; I would rather wait for the right role to come around. I want to make things for myself outside of an organization's style guide and I'm enjoying my current freelance roles. I want to be mindful of questions I ask in interview processes to make sure the next full-time role I commit to deserves my time and energy and creativity. I want to use this time to hone my craft in dataviz, but also do things I've never done before.

Thus, instead of getting bangs or training for a marathon like many of my twenty-something counterparts, I am starting a blog. Perhaps an unoriginal notion, but I crave a space to share design processes, open up my craft, and be the resource I wish I had when teaching myself dataviz. Maybe this will be the only post I ever write, maybe this will be a monthly ritual I treat with more regularity than the rest of my life. Like so many things in front of me, I really don't know.