What happened with this blog is, in a lot of ways, very symbolic to me.

I hit rock bottom. I sit down and about what’s next. I look in the mirror. For a long time. I take stock. I assess. I objectively analyze every nook and cranny of my very existence and decide I am not particularly pleased with my findings. I decide to take responsibility and make changes.

With difficulty, I put my thoughts and feelings out in a relatively public forum as a means of therapy. I get these notions in my head out. Place them in something external that I can read and chew on. I document. I feel change.

I started work on a website I’m developing, making changes to the SQL database I’ve set up. I set up the database months ago when I had no clue what I was doing with it. I just started to learn how to mess with it, and I decided that a clean slate would be good so I can make sure I didn’t set anything poorly. No problem. No issue. I look forward to the prospect of me making such a complex website from start to finish on my own. I think about the sense of accomplishment and joy in building Rome not in a day, but over months of painstaking development.

Today, I find out that my resetting that database deleted all of my posts. I scramble. I realize I didn’t save these posts anywhere else. I look through Google cache. I find nothing. I try to think of every conceivable way I can recover these posts; these posts where I poured my heart and soul. I can’t find them. I’ve failed.

My honest attempt at one thing entirely ruined something else just as, if not more, important to me. All of the work I put into that other thing is gone, and with it goes the accomplishment I felt over that. I’m back at the bottom. I might even have cracked the bottom and gotten even lower somehow. Cheers.

I stare at a blank page. I despair. I decide to start again.

I see a lot of parallels in how I’ve been going about this want for change. I start putting up scaffolding. I see the design coming together. I do something over here and everything over there falls apart. It wasn’t as sturdy as I thought. I wasn’t as mindful as I thought I was. I wasn’t smart enough or perceptive enough to avoid the mistake that’s set me back to start. I begin to doubt myself and my capacities. My capabilities.

This process has taught me a lot about faith. I can’t for certain say that I’m going to accomplish all of the goals I have. I don’t know the future. And I know it won’t be easy. But I have faith that I will.

And in that despair I was feeling, I find hope.