I am not alone

When I created this group, soon three years ago, I had yet to hit rock bottom. That happened a year ago and since then things have become increasingly better.

Now when I am getting back to normal life and after having watched many of the sessions coming out from DrupalCon Barcelona, this feels like a good place for me to restart contribute back in a for me meaningful way.

That last part "in a for me meaningful way" is particularly important to feel as it helps to stop me questioning if I am in the way, causing problems and other doubts about belonging amongst and collaborating with others.

• When I watched Mike Bell's keynote and read Steve Purkiss follow up blog post I heard and read my own story and thoughts from battling mental health issues. I could relate and understand I am not alone trying to figure out how to fit in from who I am.
• When I watched Gábor Hojtsy's session it clicked when I understood mental health and people management already is considered to be important aspects of how the whole community work together going forward.

The Drupal 8 Multilingual Initiative (#D8MI) has been the one I have followed most throughout the last years. Part because managing languages is of special interest to me, but mostly because of the way Gábor has lead and managed his initiative. His sessions on Drupal events have been the ones I first looked for as they not only gave me an update on the language management improvement, Gábor also gave amazing in-depth explanations of the whole process, the obstacles he had to overcome through collaboration with the other initiatives and much more.

This one though, it blew my mind as he focused completely on his own learning process throughout the 1,600 days of leading #D8MI. The thought process explained when solving the challenges to reach the goal to create the best possible multilingual support and at the same time develop people management skills to prevent burnouts and other mental health issues was purr gold for me to listen too.

For me Mike and Gábor represents two opposites in the equation, with the community as meetingpoint in the middle. Both with great personal experience and skillsets dealing with these issues and with tested idea's and solutions to how we, as a community, can adjust and improve our processes and ways we collaborate so that everyone has a fair chance of feeling welcomed, included and able to contribute in meaningful ways.

That's what I hope the restarting of this group can help by providing a forum where we can discuss our own and common experiences to both help us as individuals in our normal life and the way we collaborate.

I also think the learning we can develop further here will be of great help as the changes Dries outlined in his own keynote begin taking shape. Those are no small changes, especially not for a large million plus open source community, to make happen as smooth as possible.