“Hello, World!” – The beginning that changed everything. Part 1

Everything started with a crazy thought… “I’ll enter the world of IT. I don’t know how. I don’t know where. I’ll figure something out.”

It was 2021. After closing my own business in the beauty industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had been working in a grocery store for a year. Yes, you’re reading that right. I was looking for my place boldly, across many different fields.

It was summertime. I learned that one of my dreams had a chance to come true. One of those dreams that aren’t supposed to happen, and yet somehow happen on their own. A dream whose probability is estimated at 0.4%. I found out I was expecting identical twins, a pregnancy I had dreamed of since I was 23. The impossible was becoming possible.

From the very beginning, the pregnancy was marked by the words “threatened miscarriage.” Despite that, I had the courage to believe it would succeed while still pursuing new goals. Two children meant our household budget had to grow. Going back to the grocery store was probably not a good idea.

That was the moment when the chapter of my life called “looking for a profession that fits me” had to come to an end. In this area, it was time to truly grow up.

And so, sitting there with quite a big baby bump, I decided I would do it. I would enter the world of IT. After all, it’s an industry that’s developing rapidly, allows you to earn good money, and I have a technical mind. I’m not stupid. I can handle it.

I started with my first YouTube lessons with Adam Wójciński. Thank goodness that was how I began my programming journey. Adam introduced me to the world of Python gently, as if programming were a natural, innate ability that every human has.

That feeling most people experience at the beginning of their programming journey, when they see “Hello, World!” on the screen for the first time, made me feel like a hacker. The first adventure game, where you choose your starting equipment before setting off, gave me the sense that I could conquer the world. It was just a simple text-based game, but in my mind I could see my character and hear the sounds of the game. I felt that this was my world.

And so, while learning programming with Adam, the second half of my pregnancy passed. After that, I disappeared from life for two years. Literally. Two premature babies, and then tiny children, cut me off from all the roles I had played until then. I stopped existing as a friend, a buddy, a sister, a daughter, and partly as a wife. We lived at full throttle, functioning solely so that those two little beings could simply exist. At the same time, life completely reshaped my surroundings.

I took on a new role. A mother. It was the hardest job I have ever taken on in my life. A job that taught me more than anything else ever could. Patience. Operating in task mode. Setting priorities. And above all, learning to let go of my perfectionism. And you know what? I handled it damn well. As if God had created me to raise twins. Task mode under a tight schedule turned out to be exactly my thing.

Despite the sense of fulfillment, I began to feel that I was waiting for something… I was waiting for the daycare we had enrolled the children in on their second day of life to finally get back to us. I was waiting to start existing again as more than just a mother. I waited two years…

It was time for a fresh recalculation. Did we have the funds and the capacity for me to devote time to changing industries? I gave myself a year to learn programming.

I decided to buy a Python course from Kamil Brzeziński. Kamil set the bar much higher than Adam. I spent eleven months with his recordings. Seven hours a day, Monday to Friday. Almost like a full-time job.

Did I feel confident? More or less…

The moment came when I started looking around for my first job offers. And you know what… I never sent a single CV. Not even one.

I hit a wall before I even managed to open Word and type “Olga Mirończuk.” What I had learned turned out to be insufficient. Definitely far too little to enter the market. Or maybe there were simply very few openings for juniors like me… I don’t remember anymore…

For a week, my mind went silent. In everyday life, I functioned on autopilot, without emotions. I didn’t study. I just sat there. Every day, I simply sat and stared at the wall. Where was my mind then? I honestly don’t know…

My system crashed and cut the power. Only one stubborn little battery remained in my head, running quietly in the background. A survival battery that subconsciously and persistently kept searching for a way forward.

To be continued…