Here I am, 5:36 a.m., sitting still with a hot cup of coffee, while my mind runs laps like it’s training for something. January put hurdles in front of me. Some I cleared. Others I ran straight into. Hard. And yeah, it hurt.

My body hurts. We’re not even a full week into February and my knees are inflamed, my arms are stiff with tendonitis from hours of chipping and clearing ice just to carve a path from my front door to my car. Ice is unforgiving. It doesn’t care how old you are or how motivated you feel—it just resists until you’re worn down.

The nutrition plan, though? It’s slowly taking hold. Not perfectly. Not dramatically. But it’s happening. I can feel the difference in my energy. In my thinking. The fog is lifting, which sounds like a win, and it is, but there’s a side effect no one talks about. When the fog clears, reality rushes in to fill the space.

Financially, things are tight. Strained. And I know I’m not alone in that, this is life for a lot of people in the United States right now. That word “affordability” keeps getting tossed around, the same one someone once said was “made up.” Please excuse the dramatic eye roll.

Am I really old enough to be that person now? The one saying, “When I was younger, this only cost…” Because damn, it feels that way. And not in a nostalgic, romantic sense. In a this-doesn’t-add-up sense. Was I asleep for a decade and just woke up? Housing costs have skyrocketed. Food and basic necessities feel like luxuries now.

I’m seeing estimates that prices in North Texas are up roughly 57% per square foot, with overall price increases around 120%. That’s not a talking point, that’s math. And it’s not sustainable.

I make what most would call a decent living, and I still feel the squeeze when it comes to groceries, utilities, rent, and car payments. That’s a wake-up call. Ten years ago, I made less money, owned similar things, and didn’t feel this constant pressure. So what the hell is going on?

I catch myself daydreaming about a world where people coexist, where there’s a sense of shared responsibility and basic decency. Then I leave the house, and that illusion cracks. Is it me? Is it just this area? I grew up in a smaller town. People knew each other. Helped each other. There was a sense of we.

Now it feels like everyone is operating in survival mode. Me first. Mine only. Head down, shoulders tight, patience gone. And maybe that’s the real cost of all this, more than the dollars. When everything feels scarce, empathy becomes optional.

I don’t have answers. I’m not pretending to. But I know this: the weight I’m trying to lose isn’t just physical. It’s mental. Emotional. Societal. I’m trying to rebuild a body while living inside a system that feels increasingly hostile to stability, let alone growth.

Still, I show up. Coffee in hand. Knees aching. Mind clearer than it’s been in a long time. Asking uncomfortable questions instead of numbing them away.

Maybe that’s the work right now, not fixing everything, not solving the world, but staying awake. Staying honest. And refusing to pretend this all feels normal when it clearly isn’t.

If you’re feeling this too, you’re not broken. You’re paying attention.

Dak