Hey Mike, it’s Mike

It’s 1:29 AM. I’m drinking decaf. I should be in bed, but I’m not.

I wanted to write you a quick note. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but couldn’t gain any traction to actually get it done.

So many distractions. So many reasons not to. 

I wanted you to know that things got better. Obviously, things aren’t perfect. Life isn’t like that. But things are a lot better than a few years ago when things looked pretty bleak.

I had this thought a while ago while crossing the street. For a split second, I realized life was better. It was fleeting, but it was there. The thought vanished a few moments later when I got to the other side, but it was there. And I noticed.

I wanted to write about it then, but I didn’t.

A few months later, I had that thought again. I caught myself being happy. A lot has happened since my last post on here. I didn’t want you to think that’s where things ended.

Of course, things aren’t perfect. It’s a long road and an uphill road: good days and tough days. Remember when I used to say “good moments and tough moments” because a day was too much for me to handle? Yeah, well, I’m looking at days now. Good days and tough days. 

(Except for when I’m in those challenging moments. Then I have to slow everything down and go minute by minute. It seems to work for me.)

I’ll hopefully write to you a little more. Writing brings me joy. Everything else that goes with writing a post on the internet makes things seem too big if that makes any sense.

I’ve written a fair bit on different websites. Now, I can’t help but think about optimizing for search engines or writing with an angle. 

• I should add a link to this page to send traffic to that post. 
• I can’t write this post because it’s too short. 
• What if someone uses this against me? 
• I’m afraid of what lawyers will think. 
• What if a former student hunts me down? 
• What if people don’t like what I have to say? 
• What if it’s not perfect? What if I make grammatical errors? (Seriously on that one. I had a teacher leave a critical review on one of my ELA products. She didn’t think she could use my resources because of all of the grammar errors and wanted a refund. To be fair, some of the errors were voice dictation mistakes that I missed, but others were legitimate. Now I use Grammarly. I could be an ad.

I have more to say, but I promised myself only a twenty-minute writing blitz today. I just wanted to post something, you know? Start the habit. 

To get me going, I’m thinking about the following guidelines:

• Whatever I get done in twenty minutes is what I get done.
• It doesn’t have to be perfect. 
• I’m talking to myself. Either future Mike talking to past Mike, or me talking to me.
• I thought about keeping this private, but I want other people like me to find this post maybe. Who knows. It might help.
• I’m not going to link to other articles or sites. Just write.

We’ll see.

Cheers,

Mike