I can haz job!

I faxed in the papers today: it's official now. I get to stay at Red Hat as a full-time member of the Community Architecture team.

I can't begin to say much that expresses how immensely grateful I am to everyone who's made this possible, so I'll recap a little bit of recent history instead...

Last Friday afternoon I got a call from Max while Greg and I were working on open source on education stuff; the moment I said "Hi, Max!" Greg hollered "So, does she have a job?" and a few seconds later I was literally running around the tiny conference room holding the phone and laughing. We gave up on work shortly thereafter and went out to a celebration BBQ lunch; I broke into a skip repeatedly on the way to Greg's car. I calmed down a bit after lunch, enough to be coherent about wrapping up some work. And then we walked over to the People & Brand section of the office and I got my red box with the offer letter and any hope of further productivity for me that day just went completely out the window.

I held onto that box all weekend. In the airplane back to Boston, while moving to Newton, riding in the car to have lunch with family, sitting on the table beside me when I ate dinner. Every time I called someone to tell them, I started running around the room again, pacing the living room, doing laps around the dining table. When I was walking down the street to get my bike, I'd suddenly remember and do a little happy dance. I was - and am - on top of the world.

But life was normal, too - and that's the wonderful part. My life is full of doing things I love to do; I get to keep on doing what I'm doing, which is something that I love. I'm working my butt off, learning at a furious pace, and couldn't be happier - and best of all, I get to help other people get themselves into the same state of "this is where I fit! this is how I do well!"

So life goes on, and it is wonderful. I have said this before, but now I'm saying it as a promise: I shall never take the wonderful for granted.