The view from my 8 year old eyes were of my chuck clad feet jumping over my skip-it, down at my sketchbook where I drew my hands over and over, or up at the sky, laying on my front lawn in the summer with the sprinklers spraying over me, my body slowing sinking into the fresh green ground.

Summers were the best not only because you could do anything, but you had time to dream of anything.

I remember a vivid desire of mine, probably from watching many an episode of Dexter's laboratory, was that I too, could and indeed would build an a secret lab from my room. I would have this small, discreet door that not even my parents would notice. I'd be able to walk down a flight of stairs into my lab underground and make experiments and inventions -- it would be great!

8 turned to 18 and many more years passed and I was sitting at my call center job staring out the window thinking, "What am I doing?". Another customer service role and a pandemic later I started watching videos of this incredible person who not only kept her childish optimism but paired it with intelligence and endless creativity.

Simone Giertz created her job by doing what she loved and putting herself into each invention that she started. And then I found Xyla Foxlin who is essentially a rocket scientist!

I started finding all these incredible women who were creating and building and doing what they loved. I was working as a customer service rep simply because I was good at it, but once I thought I could create a device that would let me sleep on the clouds in the sky! A device that I would have obviously built a secret lab with just my 8 year old brain and resources. What was different now?

I suppose it seemed like doing incredible things, building apps, making robots, contributing to the future, the world... wasn't exactly for people that like me, not that black women had never done it, but maybe it was only the special ones, the bright or ones that had the opportunity, right place at the right time.

Something kept nagging on me. I thought about how I used to be, concocting ideas, imagining the impossible, fueled only with blueberry Eggo waffles and red Kool-aid. I craved a challenge then and thats why I was so discontented now.

So, channeling the confidence of that 8 year old, I took my first programming course... and I freaking loved it.

Maybe like the poem, > "[My] greatest fear is not that [I'm] inadequate. [My] deepest fear is that [I'm] powerful beyond measure." -Marianne Williamson I only feared doing something incredible, and owning the life that came with it.

Either way, I'm glad I'm jumped into it.

And, today #81 of my #100DaysOfCode, still wearing those Converse, I got my first job in tech! Today is day one, and with my head still in the clouds, I believe I can do anything.

"We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?"