Unfinished work

This post is an ego challenging post. I'm extremely hard on myself (who isn't?) and for every completed project I can find something that I've abandoned, either because the inspiration ran out or it just no longer was something I wanted to do.

This is fine, of course. Because I know I have finished a lot of projects of which I'm extremely proud. And I completed them wholeheartedly and very successfully. Like publishing my very first book this year or painting all those tarot cards over a period of two years or successfully changing my career in under six months - to name a very few.

But I still have this odd shameful cloud that follows me when I see my unfinished projects. I know that they're not necessarily going to stay unfinished. There is every chance that I will one day sit down to them again. But for now they are incomplete.

Like this painting:

Which got a little further along than this and has now been sat wedged beside my bookcase for well over two months.

Not to mention all that work I used to do when I thought I was going to write and illustrate my own children's book. Or the animation I made a cute character for and began taking shots of but abandoned after just a week because I couldn't muster the energy to do the drawings needed for the second part.

So why, exactly, am I telling you about my unfinished work? Because I'm practicing letting go of being the person who finished everything she sets out to do. Because I'm letting go of the need to be 'perfect' and 'together' and 'disciplined'.

Because I don't want to think of them as shameful secrets but rather simple expressions of ideas I was able to start but not follow-through with... and that's okay.

It's okay not to finish everything you start. It's okay to let an idea sit for a long time. It's okay to put something aside and forget to do it or just outright change your mind about doing it.

So this is sort of like a confessional post. I'm popping my own bubble and admitting to the world:
I don't finish everything I start and I have some brilliant ideas that I've totally abandoned out of laziness or a sense of overwhelm or because I just couldn't be bothered anymore.

I have to say - just writing this - is a massive relief.