11:09 #4: Finishing
“Beginning in itself has no value, it is an end which makes beginning meaningful, we must end what we begun.” ― Amit Kalantri
Four days ago when this started, it seemed like an easy thing to do. How hard can it be to share things about yourself and/or your thoughts with words? It’s what I have been doing for others- sharing their stories. So why is it so hard to do the same for myself?
Let me start out by saying it is very hard.
It is a really difficult thing to do sharing inner thoughts you almost always keep hidden inside. You type the words and they flow freely as your fingers graze the soft keys of your keyboard. In that moment, writing those words, you feel you’re being transported to another plane. You don’t even have to think for too long before they hit the screen.
The problem arises when you’re about to hit ‘publish’. You go over the words again and you realize just how deeply personal these thoughts are and have always been to you. So you start out by deleting the last word you typed. Then the next. And the next until all you have left is a blank page and nothing to share. You look at the clock.
10:00pm.
Sixty minutes to publish but there is nothing to share.
You decide to rest your head on the table for just a little while. Hopefully divine inspiration comes. Somehow you doze off. When you wake up, you turn to the clock once again.
10:30pm.
Your sister laughs at you and says the only reason you’re so relaxed about having nothing to publish thirty minutes to your deadline is that you know you can meet up. You don’t know if you should take it as a compliment.
10:45pm
You’re spent. Maybe this thing was a bad idea after all. Maybe you’ll never get used to sharing your inner thoughts. You can never become that fearless. You place your head on the table once more. This time when you wake up, it’s just past 1:00am. Just like that you missed your own deadline. You slap the laptop short and go to bed.
The next day you think about scraping the whole thing. You’ve done your best after two days. Another day passes. You keep thinking about it. Maybe it’s time to quit. Then you remember it is not he who started the task that should be praised according to your people. It is he who finishes it.
12:00 am the next day.
You decide a late post is better than no post. You are no quitter. And just like that you think maybe your sister meant what she said as a compliment after all.