by Misti Flowers – Blog Post #4
When The Website Won’t Boot (and Neither Will You)
This week, I came close to pulling the plug on my website. It wouldn’t load. It lagged. It froze.
And every time I reached out for support, I was told the issue was on my end.
Software conflicts, they said.
So, I rolled up my sleeves — tired as I already was — and went through everything.
Cleared caches. Disabled plugins. Ran updates.
Tried all their suggestions.
But the site stayed broken.
And I stayed exhausted.
After several days of this loop,
I started wondering if maybe I should just take the whole thing down.
Not permanently, but maybe… just long enough to breathe.
It’s hard to troubleshoot tech when your body’s also trying to recover.
This week, I haven’t felt well.
And wearing all the hats — the creator, the tech, the admin, the everything —
can sometimes tip you into a place where the joy gets buried.
Eventually — after deeper digging —
the hosting support team discovered it wasn’t my software at all.
It was their Apache database.
They fixed it.
And like a light switch, the site came back to life.
So did I, a little.
But the whole experience left me sitting with something important:
When do we create,
when all we do is handle the business of creating?
When you’re the one keeping everything afloat,
how do you protect your peace,
nurture your ideas,
and give your art space to breathe?
Here’s what I’m learning:
The site came back. So did I.
Even after frustration.
Even after doubt.
Even when it felt like too much.
We get to come back.
To anyone else feeling pulled under by the weight of everything —
please know you’re not alone.
Sometimes rest is part of the work.
Sometimes silence is part of the reset.
And sometimes, things just need a little time (and maybe a tech fix)
before they bloom again.
Still here,
Still dreaming,
Still creating when I can.
— Misti
