What I Left Myself to Find

An unfinished task can feel like an accusation.

Evidence of failure.
A measure of what we could not sustain.

We may look at what remains incomplete and draw conclusions about ourselves.
Often without considering the life that unfolded around it.

Some beginnings reveal their place in our lives only when we are ready to continue them.
Mine revealed their place after many years.

We may return to what we began with a different understanding.
Its meaning can change as we do.
What once held our imagination may eventually give us direction.

An incomplete yesterday may belong to a tomorrow we cannot see.

I began writing Beware: Hidden Truths as a teenager.
I had stories and poems.
I did not know what they would become.

As a young mother of two small children, I began Diamond Heart, Frozen Souls.
A different season of my life.
The same instinct underneath it.
A creative need within me required more room than the demands of the day could hold.

Both remained unfinished.
Life unfolded.
My attention was drawn elsewhere.

There was a temptation to let that be the end.
I began.
I did not finish.  

The distance between those two facts can become a place where judgment gathers.

But those beginnings remained a part of my life.
Each had its own season of return.

The teenager who began Beware: Hidden Truths did not know the woman who would eventually complete it.

The young mother who began Diamond Heart, Frozen Souls could not see what returning to that story would one day mean.

Each left a beginning for me.
Work I could meet again with the understanding available to me now.

When I returned to writing stories, much felt unresolved.
I was reflecting deeply, trying to understand what I was moving through and what mattered to me within it.

Writing warmed my heart.
Writing nourished my soul.
Writing made me aware of my purpose.

Not every question was answered.
Feelings remained unexplained.
Decisions needed time.
Clarity remained out of reach.

Time revealed what remained unfinished.
Stories I wanted to develop.
Choices I could make on the page.

My stories asked for my attention when I could not yet see very far ahead.

Rediscovering my stories allowed me to imagine new ones, remember old ones, consider what each story needed, and create new beginnings and endings while other parts of my life remained unsettled.

Writing has moved me closer to myself.

Finding myself has been a journey of recognition.
I recognize the teenager following a creative instinct whose possibilities she could not yet see.
I recognize the young mother learning to accept her imperfections.

Not every unfinished thing is waiting for us to return.
Intentions change.
Needs evolve.

These stories were waiting for me to return.
Recognizing that mattered.
Continuing them mattered.

Life between beginning and returning held more than I could measure by what remained incomplete.

I have more stories to write.
Writing continues to help me recognize myself more fully.

I look forward to discovering where this return leads.

We may not return to every unfinished beginning. The ones that continue to call us may hold a direction we were not ready to follow when we began. Returning may become its own beginning, a new way of discovering what we left ourselves to find.