I’ve rebuilt myself more times than I want to count.
New website. New direction. New way of describing what I do. Each time with this feeling that the previous version was wrong and this one is closer to the truth. Each time with a burst of energy that lasts a few weeks. Maybe a month if I’m lucky.
Then the energy fades. And I’m standing in front of another half-built thing, wondering if I should keep going or tear it down and start again.
There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from this. Not the kind you get from hard work. The kind you get from hard work that never accumulates. Where every reset wipes the slate and you’re back at zero, but you’re older now and the runway feels shorter.
I know the pattern. I can see it clearly from the outside when it’s someone else doing it. But seeing it doesn’t stop it. Because in the moment, the new direction always feels like clarity. Like you finally understand what you’re supposed to be doing. Like all those other versions were practice and this one is real.
Maybe it is. I’ve thought that before, though.
The hardest part isn’t starting over. It’s not knowing whether you’re breaking a pattern or repeating one. Whether this version sticks because you’ve actually learned something, or just because you haven’t gotten bored of it yet.
I think about the years lost to resets. Not wasted exactly. I learned things each time. But the time. The years where nothing compounded because I kept pulling up roots before anything could grow.
I don’t have a clean way to know if this time is different. I just know I’m tired of the cycle. And maybe that’s not wisdom. Maybe it’s just fatigue that looks like wisdom.
But I’m staying this time. Not because I’m sure.
Because I want to find out what happens when I don’t leave.