The holiday was in full swing, my family jovially conversing as my children played. The ring of cheer did not prevent my collapse. As I stammered up stairs, the crisp winter sunlight piercing through the shutters as I opened the bedroom door did not prevent the fall of my eyelids. Boots still on, the clock ticking towards 3:07pm, I fell face first into darkness as the pillow enveloped my face.

I didn’t wake up when Monica came to see where I’d slipped off to. I didn’t wake up as the kids ran around the house playing games with their cousins and crashed into the bedroom door. I didn’t wake up to the dogs doing their best impression of jingle bell bark (I’m told it was off-key).

Exhaustion. Hits you when you wish it didn’t, robs you of the moments you don’t get back.

Coming to from an uneasy slumber the next day, I looked not to a screen filled with it’s blue hues, compiler warnings, and ranting threads but just around my house.

I repaired Monica’s 2004 Dyson DC14 Animal series vacuum. The old workhorse needed a new clutch and a fresh coat of wax. Yeah, I waxed and polished a vacuum. Shiniest model in the neighborhood.

I played bike mechanic for the kids, adding news LEDs and reflectors, and adjusting everything to be in top shape. There nothing so addictive as the happiness brought on by the simple joy of watching your kids ride around on a bike.

I brought a high-power pressure washer into our kitchen and removed hard water stains from the inside of our dishwasher. Everyone in the house found that funny, but it was effective.

I repaired an old Wollensak aperture on one of my vintage lens for the old Speed Graphic. It’s not my go-to lens and I don’t use it that much, but it needed fixing.

I shot a few snaps with some of my last FujiFilm packfilm to get back in the grove. I’ve got some fun photography to do this coming year.

I sat in my tiny workshop, pencil in hand, sketching out solutions to problems on my workbench and letting my mind wander through various projects and dreams I hope to finish this year.

As much as I love to write software and contribute, I couldn’t draw myself to a keyboard. There was no code to show for my efforts, no green squares to showcase commits, no trackable impact metrics. Exhaustion robbed me of that for a little while, but at least reminded me that I’m more than the lines of code I write.

2019, here I come.