Last week, Yow Yow! was down for a total of four days. I should have known something was wrong when I tried to write back-to-back posts and the second time resulted in an error shortly after. Trying not to think anything of it, I slept it off. When I tried to visit the URL the next day, I received an error message. I later learned from GoDaddy that this is called the “White Screen of Death.” If you’re ever faced with a customer issue from them, you’ll find this on their list of options.

Long story short, I wasn’t able to fix this on my own. After speaking with a customer service rep, I paid the extra fee for “Premium Customer Service.” This service just means that they’ll take care of your issue, but they reach out to you within 72 hours. And boy, did they make me wait because I had to re-contact them again after 72 hours had passed.

The low point of this story is about how helpless I felt. I can’t code so I couldn’t go into the backend of my site and fix it myself. Instead, I had to wrestle with this feeling of throwing money at something to get it fixed. It’s not a pattern I’d like to continue down the line. After the payment though, all I could do was wait. It was completely out of my hands. On a weekend where I had hoped to spend my time writing and catching up on Fashion Week and The Grammys, I couldn’t. I thought to myself – this is what my life would be like without Yow Yow.

I would read content, but instead of keeping them afloat in my tabs, I would consume that information and then it would go into the abyss. My free time would increase 10x. I didn’t have to spend time thinking of new content, but then what would I dream about? This, I remembered, was what life was like before Yow Yow. And someday, it might be like this again. Would I be okay with it? It feels weird to not share information. This isn’t my only way of communication though. I’m a texter, emailer, verbalizer, etc. But, WordPress is home to me in a very strange way.

Any other time I have ever taken a break from Yow Yow! I was busy with work or had a vacation. Those were always my choices. This time, it wasn’t and it was scary to me. A thought flashed before me that there was a chance I might never recover Yow Yow. That also could happen someday and then what we do? Pray that we have backed this up by then.