It feels like Groundhog Day. Or perhaps Edge of Tomorrow. You put it up, you build it, then something happens.
You forget to renew your domain – been there a couple of times.
You have writer's block.
You stop caring, you become resentful.
You just become sarcastic.
You become addicted to short, concise, but ultimately empty one liners of social media posts.
You limit your expression to 160 characters. And it's not even Twitter's fault.
You can't afford the hosting, or just don't bother.
You're too busy and then you've gone six months to a year without a post.
You become sick, and don't seek treatment.
You feel like an insignificant fraud.
It's all heavy. It all happened. I've gone through that.
But then you wake up again, just like in both movies: back at the start of the plot. Back to that day where it all just begins to unfold. You wake up. But this time, you know a little better.
Then you try again.
Before the whole COVID affair disrupted everyone's lives I had been dealing with severe sleep apnea, a condition wherein I was not getting any actual sleep, and I had lived with that for a few years.
A few years. Maybe three, maybe as long as five. Without any sleep.
In those years prior to 2019 I had lived my life more or less like a zombie, battling sleepiness at work, while driving, and even while having conversations. I would wake up already tired and panting, and I would overeat and over-caffeinate to try to cope up with the drowsiness. I would embarrass myself falling asleep in meetings. The condition had consequences on my weight, my eating habits, my energy level, and my mental ability. It eventually weighed down on my confidence and self-esteem.
Fast forward to the latter part of 2019; due in part to conversations at work and the support I got from my wife and my colleagues, I had the necessary sleep studies done and purchased a CPAP machine.
The effects were immediate – that general feeling of being energetic when I wake up in the morning returned. My memory then started getting better. Conversations that lulled me to sleep in the past became clearer, and better.
Over the next six months I would begin losing weight. I lost 10 pounds even through the Christmas season. With better eating habits and home cooked meals during the pandemic, I lost another 20. I look forward to losing more.
It's not all perfect, it's not all rosy from this point on. I will make mistakes again. I might have to restart all over.
But this time I'm not afraid to begin again.