A couple of years ago, I somehow convinced myself to go outside and start running. I’ve never been the athletic type. Running was always something I hated.
As I got into it, I spiraled down the YouTube rabbit hole for tips and tricks—any way to make this terrible thing feel a little less terrible. That’s when I found fitness YouTuber Keltie O’Connor.
The video that stuck with me wasn’t about perfect running form or pace. It was her story of running every day—for 365 days straight.
At one point, she had surgery. Which meant breaking her streak. She reflected, and shared this:
“What was the point of this run streak?”
“It was only to run as much as my body could recover from.”
“So what did I do?”
“I started with running… one meter.”
One meter
That line hit me harder than any training plan. Because it wasn’t about distance. It was about presence.
About showing up—even when all you can manage is a single step.
So… what was the point of my streak?
The start
One morning—April 12, 2025—I just felt like writing. So I did.
Kind of like how Forrest Gump “just felt like running one day.”
The next day, I wrote again. In my post, Writing and Sharing, I said:
“Yesterday, after publishing a new blog post—the first one in about two years—I had a realization. I’ve become really good at writing. But I’ve stayed really bad at sharing.”
I think all the practice, all the reps, all the unseen hours somehow led me to that point.
And honestly? The physicality of it helped.
There’s something about holding that stack of index cards—like a McDonald’s hamburger-sized bundle of your own handwriting.
It’s surreal proof that you’ve been here. That you’ve shown up. That you had something to say.
A totem that whispers:
“Sup hot shot. Looks like you’ve got some words in you. Maybe it’s time to share them.”
So I did.
Every day.
For 202 days straight. (Basically.)
The middle
Every day, for the past while now… every morning leading up to this point, I’ve felt myself slowing down. Poking at my phone. Scrolling through this and that. Violating the sacred protocol of Output Before Input. Almost dreading what comes next—the difficulty of sitting at the desk, facing a blank canvas, starting with a single word.
And then… pulling. Extracting from myself whatever’s left.
Whatever stories. Whatever scraps of experience or flickers of revelation I can find that fit this single, stubborn concept I’ve chosen to publish today.
Overwatch. Spaghetti. Heard. Maker. Survivors. Gravity.
Every single one, a tiny mountain I had to climb. Every single one, something I had to muscle through.
The doubt
And when you go through that rhythm long enough, you start to question yourself.
Have I run out of things to say? Am I just looping around the same ideas—patched together with pink tape? Am I done? Like, done done?
On August 20, 2025, I wrote Break.
A post about slowing down, but also about remembering why I was doing this in the first place.
“It’s practice. A ritual. A way of digging deeper. Of sitting with the problem. Of doing the hard thing, so I can keep getting better.”
It still rings true. The goal was never the count — it was the contact.
It feels hard because it is hard. (Y’all... It’s really hard.)
In that same post, I wrote:
“Right now? I’m not there yet. I’m good. I can keep going. For how long? I don’t know. We’ll see.”
We’ll see, I said.
My past self leaving a breadcrumb for my future one.
“When you’re done, say when.”
The pause
Today is day 203.
That little stack of index cards from March 2025 has become a 3-inch chonker—Big Mac-thick, stuffed with hand-made featured images, sketches, scribbles, and notes.
And today—October 31, 2025—Halloween, fittingly.
After 202 days of writing.
After over 150 mornings of stepping up to the mic and showing up to the morning ritual— I can feel it.
Just like Forrest Gump, standing in the middle of that highway in the desert.
A big exhale.
“I’m pretty tired. Think I’ll go home now.”
The end(?)
Streaks end. And that’s okay.
The point was never to chase perfection—it was to build presence. To be present. To take the time to think about how I feel about things. To take the time to share them with others. To find rhythm in the doing. To prove to myself that I could show up — again and again.
Would I go through all of this nonsense again? Absolutely. In a heart beat.
I know I became better because of it. I know I became more myself because of it. And I know I helped a few folks in small ways because of it. What more could I ask for?
So maybe this isn’t the end of the streak. Maybe it’s just an exhale. A pause before the next inhale. A quiet, steady “see you soon.”
...
When.
(For now.)
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P.S. On May 11, 2025, I started this little AI Podcast experiment—a way to use AI to dive deeper into my own work. A personal feedback engine. A mirror I could talk to.
That became another quiet streak of its own. As of today, that AI-powered podcast just hit episode 300.
