To celebrate our ten year anniversary, we are inviting back former writers back to tpc in order to hear what they’ve been thinking about since leaving the post calvin. Today, please welcome back Amy (Allen) Frieson. Amy graduated in 2010 with an English degree and moved to New York City, where she worked in children’s book publishing and as a career consultant. Now she is on her third career as a software engineer who also knits, sews clothes, takes ballet classes, and bakes. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and a chatty cat.
Wow, okay. If you are looking for a way to make yourself feel both older and younger than you are, both inspired and embarrassed by past you, both proud and critical of what that past self decided to share with the internet—may I suggest reading through two years of your blog posts from ten years ago.
I’ve always hated rereading my writing. Looking back is uncomfortable. It puts present you in tension with past you. It’s like when your own voice comes out of your parents’ answering machine—”Is that really what I sound like?” But it’s also one way to learn if you need to redirect future you, and, if you are lucky, how.
In software engineering, the profession in which I now find myself, there is the very useful concept of semantic versioning. Each new software version gets a number when it’s released, like an ID tag, and the new number indicates how significant those changes are. (More here if you’re really interested.)
The main concern is how backwards-compatible the new version is—if it contains major changes from the previous version, meaning it will likely break other things that depend on it, or if the changes are “minor,” meaning they shouldn’t break stuff, or just a “patch,” aka a bug fix. It’s meant to communicate at a glance how difficult upgrading will be for you. Other routines, dependencies, preferences have to adapt to accommodate the demands of the new software.
Looking back at my old posts, I can see plenty of times where past me was successfully updated. Moving from one East Village apartment to another three blocks away—that was a minor change, non-breaking. My commute time wasn’t affected appreciably, but my new in-unit washer and dryer made a whole lot of things easier. Starting a new career as a software engineer who worked remotely, however, was a major change. Living through quarantine in a one-bedroom NYC apartment with a husband and cat, another.
I am too young to be having a midlife crisis and too old for a quarter-life one, but recently, I’ve been making a conscious effort to re-find past me. I started going to ballet classes again, my longtime passion that I put aside for about ten years. I appreciate the discipline differently as an adult; I am a more thoughtful dancer now, though less flexible. I’ve also started making my own clothes, expanding on my grandma’s sewing lessons. I bought a sewing pattern a couple of years ago on a whim and now a significant amount of my wardrobe is handmade. I’ve been baking, too, late to the sourdough trend but now firmly ensconced. I have always been driven to make things with my hands, but I didn’t realize until I stopped doing it.
Writing is probably the last piece of my old self that I haven’t brought with me into the present, and to be honest, that’s part of why I opted to write this post. It’s part of me that I miss. How will future me be different if I re-adopt this practice? What new things might I learn about my past self? There’s no handy version number to let me estimate the scope of this update, but I suspect that the risk is low.
I was struck by how many of my old posts were categorized as “placeless.” I think I’ll always be a person who searches—and maybe that isn’t something to fight. A breaking change might be just the right excuse to update something else that is out of date.
If you are a former writer and interested in contributing this year, email info@thepostcalvin.com
After graduating with an English degree, Amy (Allen) Frieson (’10) moved to New York City and spent several exhilarating years working in children’s book publishing. Now, she works as a career consultant and has much more time for writing, reading, wandering the city, cooking non-vegetarian meals (a new thing), dreaming about apartment renovations, and leading worship along with her husband at their NYC CRC.
