The Choices I Make

I was thinking yesterday about the book manuscripts never finished. There was the book I was writing on day trips, the one on the trip I took to Florida in 2015, and in 2016, there was the trip to Kansas. Three manuscripts in various stages, along with lots of photos. Then there is the poetry book ready to go but for finishing the design of the front cover. And this isn’t counting the three manuscripts I’ve done the past three years on pastel painting.

There’s something wonderfully joyful about holding a book in my hand that I wrote and had self-published. The first were poetry chapbooks, then a picture book on windows, next was a beautiful book of poetry and pictures, and finally, the solo, 33-day trip to Florida in 2013. I was so eager to publish more.

However, somehow, somewhere along the way, a part of me has been crippled. I just don’t have the energy to go the last mile with these projects and I’m left feeling incomplete. I can’t even begin to describe the hole this has left in me. I am sad. The air has leaked out of my tires, and I’m broken down on the side of the road with no help in sight.

It’s no own’s fault but my own. It’s not that I’m putting myself down; it’s the choices I make on what to work on… or not work on. Yeah, there were people I interviewed in my travels, telling them I was writing a book. Do they remember? Do they care? Have I let them down?

I let myself down. After all, I’m the only one who cares about these books. But I need to be realistic. Do I have the gumption to finish any of them? It breaks my heart to admit I don’t. I still think about them. The books are always in the back of my mind.

I make my choices. I can choose to go over again all my writings, or I can move on to new things. I choose the new.