Hello, internet! It’s been a minute. Several, in fact. Some might even say dozens. Anyway, today I found a “final warning” in my inbox that I was about to lose my domain as I had forgotten to renew it. “That’s fine,” I thought. “Maybe it’s time to let it go. Rebrand. Start fresh. I haven’t written a blog post in years, anyway.”
For awhile, I was absolutely fine with this decision. Look at me! Letting bygones be bygones. Turning a new leaf. Setting myself free from the weight of the past. But, then I remembered… the computer that I saved all of my blog posts on is currently kaput due to a bad battery. If I lose my domain, I lose all my posts. And while there aren’t THAT many, they are memories that I’d like to save, especially since my brain isn’t so reliable these days. (All day I thought it was Tuesday. It isn’t. It’s Wednesday. Which is pretty close, but not quite close enough.) So, I decided, fine. What can it cost? 20 bucks?
Sure enough, it was $21.99… plus an $80 reinstatement fee. I pondered the fee for awhile, thinking that it was an awfully lot to pay for something I could have gotten for $21.99 a few weeks ago if my brain had worked better at remembering. However, the longer I thought about losing the writing I had done, the more it felt like I needed to get it back. Sometimes, at times like these, I think of our ancestors. Gathering berries, hunting megafauna, tagging cave walls with prehistoric spray paint… they never had to worry about their cave drawings being locked behind a paywall or having to pay a reinstatement fee. While I don’t envy their lack of modern medicine or their surplus of sabertooth tigers, I do envy that.
Anyway, I did it. I bought it back. Maybe unnecessarily. Maybe I could’ve gotten the files another way, or maybe it would have been back at the $21.99 price in a few weeks when they realized no one actually wants this domain. Oh well. I will say, although it did cost me $100 I didn’t plan to spend, replacing my laptop battery would have been $200. So. I actually saved some money if you think about it that way.
However, with this purchase, I made a promise to myself. I said if I were going to buy it, I would use it. So, this is me using it. And I’ll use it again! Because nothing is more motivating than a preventable financial setback. And that motivation, my friends, may be priceless.*
Anyway, see you soon!
-Katrina
*it wasn’t. It was $100.
Katrina Charles is a musician, writer, wanderer, adventurer, etc. currently living in Seattle, Washington. When she’s not doing the above activities, she enjoys paddleboarding, remembering to wear her fitbit, drawing, designing, and trying new things.