Opening Day: Pedal Building 2025

For months I had been excitedly waiting to building my Southland overdrive clone. All I needed was to find the perfect day to start my 2025 build season, and that day was March 13th. The day was beautiful, the animals were out in full force, and the temperature was set to be the highest it had been in months. I gathered everything and set up my work station outside. The build went pretty well, but there was a sense of agitation in the air the entire time. Although I was finally building the overdrive I had been wanting to build, it just wasn't feeling like I normally do, or hoped it would. I'm still not sure what it was exactly, but there have been a few things going on in my life that could be the culprit.

Even testing wasn't what it used to be. Normally I'm an neurotic mess as I plug everything up; ready to be completely let down by another failure, or at least another troubleshooting session. Deep within myself I felt like this was no longer what I wanted to do with my time. Something is different, something has changed. The strange thing is this circuit came to life immediately. Not even a single second of delay to sow the seeds of doubt. It just worked outright, and perfectly. I can't remember the last time that has happened.

There is a lot going on in my head right now. I'm closing a chapter that I worked on for fifteen years, and now I'm starting fresh. All of this has me in a shaky headspace, more so than I already am. I still have builds that need parts ordered, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be building. Is this an ending, or maybe a shift? I'm not sure. All I know is life is about to get very complicated soon, and I'll need to adjust everything to accommodate it. While some things are falling into place, I need to wrangle other aspects to keep them in line. Getting old is far more complex than just aging gracefully. A lot of things, despite your best efforts, simply don't, and won't go the way you want them to.

I guess in a way, it's a lot like building a pedal circuit. You can plan it to a T, but there are always things you never planned for. No matter how I feel, I'm trying to urge myself to be excited about the Ram's Head Muff clone I have planned. It's one of the builds that still needs parts. I have a lot of simple builds this year, with fewer bigger projects. Maybe in this new chapter I'll have a more inspiration to build, and this year's season just started off in a funk as a sign thing can only get better. We'll see.