Wordle always seems so easy to me until it’s not.

I’ve played it every day for a few years and I’ve put together some big streaks.

During those streaks I just cruise.

And slowly I build…past 100…nearing my all-time streak…

Until inevitably I fall short of that magic number.

As you can see in the stats below, that number is 134. I can’t remember when it happened but I think it was over last summer or thereabouts…ending in the fall?

I can tell you my latest attempt - I got real close - ended at 126 last week. (That’s a week ago Thursday, in case you’re keeping score at home.)

If you’ve never had a bad Wordle day, the image above is what shows up when you don’t solve it that day - “No More Guesses.”

(If you’ve never had a good Wordle day, on days you solve the puzzle you get a square that tells you how you solved it that day. [‘You solved it in 4 guesses,’ for example.])

Haste, I think, was the word that got me this time. Or maybe it was baste. Or paste.

That’s the problem. I hit too many possibilities with the first letter and ran out of tries.

And that’s how it goes.

I was kind of hoping this streak would become my all-time record and then I’d lose it in about a month or so, and then I’d just quit my subscription after that.

I am tempted to quit my Times games…but I’ll have to give that some thought. I can sacrifice Wordle and Connections and Strands and even the Spelling Bee. I have lived without those more than I have with them in recent years.

But the crossword I’ve been doing almost every day for more than a decade. Maybe even more than more than a decade.

I worked at it and taught myself years ago to solve Friday and Saturday puzzles and have been solving them for a long time now.

It’s a fun activity for me over my morning coffee or some Sunday afternoons while watching baseball.

I’m not sure I’m ready to give that up.

But my next Wordle streak might very well be my last.

(Note: After writing this I built a 6-day streak only to lose again this past Thursday. Whoops.)