The season of false starts
The season of false starts
The weight of waiting
Over the last month, I sat at my desk every Friday trying to conjure up the next big article idea. The next revelation. Planning a comeback meticulously, neatly, so that it conveniently covers up my faults and my inconsistency. The truth is, my keyboard has collected dust and I haven’t typed a word let alone a whole article for a long time. And weight of waiting to make a comeback got to me. The more I over planned the heavier and heavier this comeback became.
We often convince ourselves that comebacks are embarrassing. Why were you gone in the first place? Gave up so easily? Huh. I’ve berated myself for going through the motions, so much so that a couple times I forgot which day it was. I forgot a couple Fridays, the rest I convinced myself that I was too tired, too busy or too uninspired. Every time I submitted to procrastination, I undeniably felt guilty. Mentally I was convinced through the week that next Friday would be the one. The one where I write the perfect article, and it’s like I was never gone. But strangely when Friday came along, I made a choice not to try.
So what?
When we choose not to try, all hope is truly lost. In all honesty, no you aren’t going to make a comeback by planning and then chickening out when it comes to execution. Each false start is going to create more and more distance between your ‘plans’ and what really happens. The funny thing is that after all that thinking about my re-entry, now that I’m finally executing, it’s messy, unapplauded and unremarkable, everything I was trying for it not to be. And contradictory to pretty much all of what I’ve written so far, the world hasn’t ended. Not because I made one false start after another. Not because I openly critiqued myself on a public platform. Life goes on.
This article is not like others. It’s more of a note to self. It sure as hell does not guarantee that I won’t go incognito ever again. But it holds me accountable instead of hiding behind a big comeback intended to negate all the times I tried but failed to just write.
It’s a start.
At this point, this article may be just rambling, and ironically, I feel the need to ‘cover it up’ with a perfect resolution to not make false starts. But if I’m being frank, I don’t have one. Nor do I want to have blood on my hands again from burying the corpse of my repeated loss.
I think many of us go through turmoil in our heads when sticking it through inevitably becomes harder than it seems. I choose to write it out and post it for everyone to read but most make silent comebacks after failing again and again. Instead of making an applause-worthy comeback to prove yourself to the world, perhaps we need to applaud for ourselves. It’s harder than it seems, for you and for me.
So maybe it’s ok to put our brains aside and finally unpack what we’ve been putting off? Maybe the pressure of seamless comebacks brings upon a season of false starts. But as you can see, this comeback is probably embarrassing. But it’s a start, not perfect, not as I planned, not ideal but not false either.
