Last week I plunged back into the coding deep end. I spent a full day refactoring something I knew nothing about a few short weeks ago, and my brain went to that mythical “zone” for the first time in a long while as it all clicked into place, almost effortlessly. I was burning again with confidence I’d forgotten.

And then it was the weekend — a long one, at that. In my 20s, I always looked forward to holiday weekends because they gave me an opportunity to not just rest and catch up, but work on something for myself, usually code-related. Many epic projects, fixes, and features have been born on a holiday weekend from my quiet retreat with a laptop.

Saturday felt like my mind had rebooted. I spent it and most of Sunday relaxin’ and chorin’, and then around Sunday dinner I had a strange impulse to start setting up the project that’s been rattling around my head for the last few years.

I guess I should clarify what a “strange impulse” counts as these days. It means when I gut-checked my mental state to see if it was ready to tip the internal scales to action, I was surprised to get back a green light. I wasn’t exhausted, overextended, under the weather, or anxious, nor was I weighted down by grief. I wasn’t disillusioned with the world or, if you wanna get simplistically pejorative, “feeling lazy af.” The pilot light was simply on and ready.

As the scales tipped and I worked into the night, they tipped further than I expected. What started a light foray to set up a new PHP project’s framework to noodle with some ideas morphed into a realization this is the start of something significant. What may be the biggest first commit of my life is coming, soon. And that’s when things really started to snowball in my mind.

Like the day Icrontic was hacked, the day I decided to move to Michigan, or the day I committed to buy this house, I can feel the inflection point as it bends my choices around it. I have no idea where this leads, but the conviction I can make the journey an excellent one has returned.

I’ll tell you more about it in a year, give or take a season or two.