Course Change

 Been growing and changing very quickly, so quickly that I can hardly keep up. 

I had a pile of unfinished stories from past years. Some of them are very short, only a page or two. Some of them are thousands of words long. I've accumulated these stories since I was a teenager, the way that an artist will have pages and pages of unfinished drawings, doodles, sketches, and other visual ideas expressed onto paper.

For a long time I have felt like I had to go back and finish certain pieces from this pile. And there are a few pieces I tried to go back and finish repeatedly. Two in particular come to mind: one is a post-apocalyptic story about a mermaid, and the other is a story about a girl who can transform into birds.

These stories are both really good, I think. Or they would be, if I could finish them.

But, you see, I can't. Because I'm not the person who began those stories any more. 

One of the results of growing as fast as I have, and doing the healing work that I've been doing, is that I am not the same person today that I was five years ago. I'm not even the same person that I was a month ago. I didn't think before that a person could change so quickly, but I am my own living proof that yes, a person can become very different than they used to be.

For example, I learned about chakras.

This is all good. It really is. 

There's just one problem that, up until yesterday, I hadn't solved.

And that is all of those unfinished stories. 

You see, I've changed so dramatically that when I go back to those stories, it's as if I'm picking up a drawing that was half-done by someone else. Someone who used different tools, who had different reference, who maybe used a different hand, who had a certain pencil or set of paints that isn't made any more. And I could do more to that unfinished drawing. Maybe trace it with my own drawing tools. Maybe try to push it in a new direction. Maybe even try to follow the outline, the original intentions, and finish it as it was. 

But they aren't really my 'drawings' any more. 

There are some that I've just lost interest in, or that were trying to say something that I don't believe any more, or working on themes that don't resonate with me. 

I realized, yesterday, that it's okay for me to be done with all those stories. That actually, I've been done with those stories for years and just didn't know it. The perfectionist in me, who I've been actively working to heal, had been holding on to those unfinished tasks because he thought that good artists always finish every piece. There was some kind of honor that I was banking on, some kind of street cred I thought I was earning.

I release that belief. :) It's okay for me to be done, for me to call those stories finished, to put them to bed, to rest. I'm grateful for the good they did me. Those story pieces helped me to express things I needed to express. They helped me to stretch my writing muscles, to refine my skills. Some of them were really fun to make. In some cases, they gave me an opportunity for me to explore stories that I didn't want to write, to walk down those paths long enough to learn that they were not for me.

So, I say thank you to my past self for those pieces of stories. It is time to move on. And yes, there is some sadness in the decision to be done. It's a little bit like saying goodbye to a friend. Even if you haven't really talked to that friend, even if you've grown apart since you knew each other in middle school, and you remember all the afternoons you spent together, and the belief that you had that you'd just always be friends.

Yeah. It's sad. 

It's okay for things to be sad sometimes.

It is time for me to put all the energy I had held up in those old stories into creating something new and beautiful. With improved skill and greater ability, with a healed drive to finish and a clearer vision, the me of today is ready to start and finish today's stories. To be in the now, rather than in the past, and to work into the future, rather than keep going back to what was.