How it started
The first time I ever used Vim I was like this meme — WTF is going on here. No mouse, a pile of weird key commands, and worst of all no syntax highlighting. I remember needing to add a single semicolon to a C++ program and spending what felt like forever moving my cursor to it. Then, like it was my first time touching a keyboard, I used one finger to press i and w as precisely as I could, terrified of breaking something. I finally escaped, breathed a sigh of relief, and swore never again.
How it's going
Fast forward a few months and here I am. Two weeks of daily-driving Neovim in, and I honestly don't think I'm going back. Past the part where it just makes me feel like a cool hacker, the lack of UI lets me lock in without distraction. The commands I found annoying now feel like Mortal Kombat combos I'm trying to string together. Not only do I feel more focused as a dev, using Vim has made me faster in the terminal generally. I've only just started, but I can finally say I know how to exit Vim.
Special thanks
ThePrimeagen for getting me to try Vim in the first place, and Josean Martinez for the Neovim config I started from.