The Burden
Leadership isn't the meetings, the title, or the authority. It's the weight you carry home after everyone else has gone to bed. Four years after my cardiac arrests, sleep still eludes me, and on nights like this, I find myself lying awake, replaying conversations, questioning decisions, and worrying about people I'm not even empowered to help. That's the burden nobody tells you about.
Are You Still Watching?
My sleep schedule has become absolute chaos. Couch naps turn into fake responsibility, fake responsibility turns into sleeping with the bedroom light on, and somewhere in the middle of all that nighttime nonsense I somehow manage to write a few pages before dawn drags me back into the world.
It Is The Way
There is no middle ground. There is no “later,” because now is later. When something takes hold of you, really takes hold, you don’t get to ignore it. You either answer the call, or it drives you fucking insane.
3 a.m. Metrics
Waking up at three in the morning is my new normal. It’s when my mind is sharpest, and also when it gets trapped, chewing on the bullshit metrics we’re told define a successful life: job, money, love. Somewhere between a foggy Minnesota road and the imagined violence of someone in a hurry to go nowhere, it became painfully clear: our priorities are broken, our patience is gone, and the math we’re using to measure a life doesn’t add up.