In an over-sized Mason jar on our dining room table, a roll of yarn sits stuffed down deep – pierced with dual knitting needles and good intentions.

A near-completed painted canvas of the Oledanick Kingdom waits atop my record collection, daring me to let it sit there unfinished and discarded.

One, two, three, four? novels lay in wait on my laptop screen, tucked into folders and filed among other imaginative plots and perils of the characters who dance on the screen of my mind when I fall asleep.

A website domain purchased, that points no where.

A sketchbook begging for colour.

An anthology of songs asking to be sung.

And where I am? Among the reeds of big ideas and little follow-through. It sometimes reeks like a metaphor for my life. Projects started, projects gone wayside. My biggest fault and flaw is not being able to see a dream through to the finish line. Not always, but sometimes. And why? Is it for lack of time? Boredom? Do I exhale all the air out when the meter dash gun goes off, so that by the time I’m halfway down the track, I’ve completely exhausted myself?

Maybe.

The Chronicles of Oledanick probably feels like the closest I’ve come to finishing a project. The story is written in its entirety in my head. Followed closely by “The Fruits of Paradise”, and “Curtain Call”, another couple of books I have planned and prepped and are ready to be put pen to paper. Or keystroke to screen, whichever. The point is, it’s hard to stay motivated and focused on the projects you want to do, when the things you have to do somehow take up all the space in your calendar.

How do we get better? How do we teach ourselves patience, or determination? I’m consistently towing the line between a Type A and Type B personality. I get anxiety if the house is a mess before I leave for the day. But I can leave my art hobbies in a disarray. I have my wash cloth laid neatly over the sink. But my make up kit is a mess. My car has extra napkins, and kleenex, and hand sanitizer, and sunglasses, and lip chap, and gloves, but it’s rarely full of gas, and never has windshield wiper fluid. I organize the pillows in the living room, but my dresser drawers have barely a ripple of consistency.

Maybe being both – maybe being both the Jekyll and the Hyde, the ‘was’ and the ‘now’, the ‘here’ and the ‘there’ is what simply makes the most complicated of us the most interesting. I love hearing about projects people have on the go. The life-long dedication to a piece they’d been puzzling for years. Snippets here, snappets there. A little bit at a time. Maybe these little pieces of me are not, in fact, discarded. They’re always there, patiently waiting for me to come by and complete them. Whether it be in a moment, or in years of time. Maybe.

— c ☆

Rather listen than read? The Handle with Care podcast coming soon. Just these blogs, except me speakin’ em. It’ll be fun. Promise.