I woke up at 1 AM again.
My overstimulation at 8 PM made a bedtime root beer float seem entirely logical at the time. So, when my very wired almost-6-year-old walked into my room at 9 PM needing help to fall asleep, my fake sleep turned into real sleep by 9:15 PM.
Consequently, when my very confused almost-41-year-old body shot back upright at 1 AM—incorrectly convinced it had received enough rest—my nonsensical YouTube feed served up something interesting.
I watched a video of a 51-year-old woman explaining how she wished she had pressed record at 40.
She lamented waiting so long for a motivation that never came. She talked about waiting for a life to slow down that never actually slowed. She spoke of the realization that if she had just pressed record at 40, she’d now have 10 years of compounding content building momentum—and potentially an additional stream of income running in the background while life “lifed” in the foreground.
It wasn’t regret, per se. Just a lesson.
If she had allowed herself to show up imperfectly and unready 10 years ago, she wouldn’t be doing that heavy lifting today. She seemed proud of her progress over her past year of posting on YouTube, but there was an urgency—almost a desperation—in her attempt to get 40-year-old women to understand that whatever they are waiting for… just isn’t on the way.
Basically, my algorithm attacked me.
I liked her description of the toll we must pay.
The bad video. Showing up before we feel qualified. Speaking before we have something to say. That’s the price of admission for any road worth traveling, but so many of us talk ourselves out of paying that small fee. There is a beautiful line in Zechariah that warns us not to despise “small beginnings,” because God rejoices to see the work begin. I walked away from my own YouTube channel 10 years ago, so this felt personal.
I’ve spent the last decade waiting for life to slow down. Waiting for my job to feel less all-consuming. Waiting for my city to feel like home. Waiting for a feeling of readiness that I now know, in hindsight, was never on the way.
I’ve wanted to return to content creation for the last 10 years, convinced that if I could just get settled in a job or finally find an apartment that didn’t give me the “ick,” I’d be ready to press record again.
King Solomon nailed this thousands of years ago in Ecclesiastes when he wrote that whoever watches the wind will never plant, and whoever looks at the clouds will never reap. For me, life laughed in whatever color chaos comes in, and handed me more bags to carry.
As this woman’s video dragged me down memory lane, fragments of a movie quote came to mind.
“We never lose our demons, Mordo. We only learn to live above them.” — The Ancient One
It tickled me when I looked it up and discovered the movie itself was 10 years old, spoken to Mordo in reference to Doctor Strange, who was still figuring out how to utilize his power.
Sunday school teachers would probably argue with Marvel’s theology on demons, but the Apostle Paul essentially said the exact same thing about our past failures and internal heavy lifting. He talked about the necessity of forgetting what is behind—or beneath—and straining toward what is ahead—or above—so we can press on… or in my case, press record.
Look, I know it’s late, but the fact that Paul did serious prison time isn’t helping the fact that I just pictured him rapping those bars.
An entire YouTube channel concept flashed into my mind right then, everything previously locked behind a paywall disguised as “readiness.” I must press record. I must pay the toll.
My job won’t get easier. The emails won’t slow down. My 3-bedroom house won’t magically shrink back into my 2024 studio apartment to make itself easier to clean. My kid won’t stop asking brilliant but baffling questions from sunup to sundown, forcing deep dives into whether or not rhinoceroses have noses or if birds have teeth. My hormones aren’t going to return to 2019 factory settings. The demons of 10 years of “what-ifs” and “could-have-beens” aren’t going anywhere.
I simply must learn to live above them. If I want to get on the road, I must live above it all.
Not bad for a 1 AM epiphany.
After I finish scribbling out the bones of my return to content creation, I’ll hopefully drift back to sleep.
Later today, it’s the opera. At 40, I press record and pay the toll.
See you on the other side.
