To all,

Okay, I know it’s been quite some time, and I know that I’ve made some grand promises about this blog.

I’ve failed on pretty much every promise, but I’ll start making excuses now:

[1] Life is hard.

Yes, it is. I mean, people tell you that over and over again when you’re younger, but you never really understand it until you’re actually head-first and somehow still waist-deep into the muck. Granted, my life isn’t horrible by any stretch, but it’s stressful. Maintaining a decent standard of living, while working full time and going to Engineering School full time is quite the daunting challenge, but I’ve made it work. Sometimes, I just find myself overwhelmed with the desire to sit down and do nothing. During the winter break, I made a slew of plans to get my writing hobby on track, but I’m just going to take this little-by-little.

Plainly, I’m going to man up and take a few minutes out of my day to keep trying at this.

[2] 2015 was the worst year of my life.

It’s pretty self-explanatory. So much happened in 2015 that I can’t even fathom any theory regarding how I made it through, other than the everlasting support of my wife, Ashley. Seriously, I went from feeling like I was on top of the world with my shiny new (well, “new” to me) luxury car cruising to Chicago in February, to standing over the grave of my infant son, who tragically passed away one day after my wife’s birthday. Summarizing the slew of feelings that arose from this event would be like trying to walk on the surface of the sun (which has no surface, and is really hot, anyway). All I can say is that it essentially left us barely hanging onto any type of motivation.

Somehow, we managed to pull ourselves, and each other, through the grief and continue to rather academically outstanding semesters. The brief victory was great, but still, it is safe to say that there is a huge chunk of our souls missing after we lost our boy.

[3] I’m scared.

Plainly, I’m just terrified. I don’t necessarily know what I’m doing, but I’m just yapping–which is what I assume bloggers and journalists do in regards to their passions. I don’t have any employees, yet, so I’ll continue on by myself for now. Eventually, I’ll conjure up a business model and get the ball rolling, but coming down from the cloud of ambition was a very trying moment for me, too. I’ve always dreamed about having a business where I could sit in a room with some of my dearest colleagues and do what I love, but once I realized how hard it was, I kind of fell off of a cliff. Seeing places like Jalopnik and Buzzfeed are as inspiring and as they are daunting, yet I am well aware that the road to success kind of resembles driving through the caldera of an active volcano in a Fiat 500.

Oh well. I’m not the first person who had a dream of doing what he or she loved. I know that, and I can only sit back and follow by the example of my predecessors that managed to make it happen. If I could only keep my confidence in my writing and creative abilities at a steady level, I presume that this would be a much easier and straight forward task, but alas, I am merely a human being.

It’s all about the struggle to get ahead, right? Right. Since that realization, I’ve discovered that the biggest enemy I have, is my myself. The doubt. The lingering voice that tells me that “no one cares” about what I have to say or write about is the main factor of my dissidence. Don’t worry though, because I’ll continue fighting it. Today is a good day, and as long as I have my confidence, my talent, my family, and my readers, everything will be okay.

Someday at Machscribe, we’ll have people like Chris Harris flying out to Spain to drive new Ferrari models, while simultaneously, we’ll have journalists covering the elections.

Hold me to this new promise:

At least one post per week, starting today, January 17, 2016.

Thanks for listening, and thank you for the support.

–Bryan