My life is full of unfinished stories. I make plans. I never act on them. I start to study something, only to quit. I write random notes and to dos, that I never complete. The time comes when I am too ashamed to open these chapters up again. I am the procrastinater surpreme. I try to forget after a while. But like weeds in an unkempt garden, these thoughts crop up every now and then. When I am having coffee with my friend who seems to have all her files in order. When I am out with my kids trying to have some fun. When I am in bed trying to get a good nights sleep. Sound familiar?
I have been doing this for as long as I can think. I think as soon as I stopped being a child this pattern started to form. Kids live in the moment, they appreciate the present, they do whatever they’re comfortable with. They don’t plan ahead. They don’t have any desires other than a full stomach, and the knowledge, that someone is caring for them. My kids are like that. They don’t ask for anything more advanced than ice cream, now. They don’t ache over the fact that we don’t drive a fancy car; sure they want one when they see one speeding by, but they don’t loose sleep over it. My daughter asks for a nice dress, when she sees one in the store, but she forgets all about it as soon as we leave the store. Kids don’t think about were they will live next year, they don’t envy anyone. So how come I do it? My friends do it too. When does the worry come in? When does the desire come?
I have never been in immediate danger of hunger, never had to think about clothes, I was never homeless or close to being it. Still I choose to desire food more often than I need to eat, I want more clothes than my closet can hold, I want a big, beautiful house for my family and me. I worry about these things, I worry about when it will all happen, I worry about looking worse than someone else, I worry about eating too much, but wanting to eat more. I worry about my life. Why am I not ahead? Why can’t I have this thing like X? Why can’t I eat what I want and look like Y? Why can’t I travel the world without worrying about money like Z?
Why can’t I cherish the moments I have? It’s like I opened all these tabs in my mind with all the planning as a teenager, as a young adult, as a mother. I opened them, but never followed through, I never read them top to bottom, I never closed them. Now my brain can’t seem to close them. All these desires floating around my mind and my heart, without having a chance at completion.
Whenever these thoughts crop up now, I stop myself from asking why. I try to find a way to close the tab. I started to learn Japanese as a teenager. I had this Anime/Manga addiction, which turned me toward Japanese. I started, realized it was too hard, put it on the back burner. I said to myself: I’ll do it when I’m done with school. I was rewatching one of the Animes last year and of course the ‘learn Japanese’ project came up to bug me. The negative me started saying: another thing that you didn’t finish. I literally stood up, got my phone and started looking for language learning methods and apps. I downloaded Duolingo and I started. On my way to work I do my lessons. I have a 568 day streak going now. The negative me didn’t pipe up again.
It’s only one of the many open loops I am closing. I never went down this path, the path of closure. I alway chose the easy way. Just quit. It doen’t matter. It’s not that easy for my brain. It doesn’t let go of my hopes and desires. It keeps hanging on to these things. Unless the mind lets go, the brain will bring it up again and again. I am greatful for it, because I realized, that by going through these process of closure, my inner self protects me from regret and unhappiness. It wants me to learn along the process. It wants me to grow into the best version of myself.