Named It Something Than It Was

I have a way of finishing things that involves finding one more reason why the thing is not yet done and needs one more pass before it can leave my hands,
I have a way of finishing that keeps the work just inside the moment it was meant for multiple passes while I’m still deciding whether it is ready,
I have a way of finishing that looks like care and precision that feels like something else entirely are from the inside where I know what the extra pass is actually protecting from,
Am I holding onto this thing tightly because it genuinely requires more from me at this moment, or is it because releasing it hasn’t yet found a way to do so without making me feel like I’m losing something,
I have a way of finishing tasks that has resulted in some of my most remarkable work, the space between completion and release, that creates a safe haven rather than the actual state of being “done” or “released”…

I have named the doubt I carry with so many different names over the years, but it made it possible to walk past without stopping to have the whole conversation again,
I have named the doubt and found naming it made it smaller than walking around my head, it made harder for it to stand and block the entire entrance to the room waiting,
I have named the doubt and noticed that it was not actually new information, but already survived in a slightly different tone of voice each time it arrived,
What if the doubt I have been treating as a warning about the quality of the work is actually just the sound my particular mind makes when it is close to doing something real,
I’ve named the doubt and walked alongside it, I discovered that the company of doubt is not the same as the approval of doubt, and that the work doesn’t require its existence…

I have watched myself shrink the stakes of a project in order to begin, the small embarrassment of needing that permission and then felt the thing open into something larger once the beginning was safely behind me,
I have watched myself lowering my own standards not because I genuinely believed the task was insignificant, but because the only version of myself capable of initiating it had consented to treat it as ordinary,
I have watched myself call it an experiment and felt the relief of the word take something from my shoulders that I was carrying until the moment I agreed to put it down,
Why does giving myself permission to make a small and imperfect thing feel like settling when the evidence every single time is exactly how the larger and truer one begins,
I have watched myself lowering my standards repeatedly only to find that the work surpasses my expectations each time, despite this pattern the work continue to surprise me every time…

I have been grateful for the opportunity to create things, but I’ve buried that gratitude under the weight of all the reasons why my creations aren’t going well enough, fast enough, or completely enough that matches my effort,
I have been grateful in the moments when the work was moving and also when the moment it slowed down, as if the gratitude were already good enough to feel it without effort,
I have been grateful and then forgotten to remember the same the feeling that makes the current version of the work feel less like a problem and more like a privilege that I’m almost giving back,
What would change about my approach to the challenging days of making, creating difficult things, is still the version of my life I would choose over not making anything at all,
I have been grateful for my work but I’ve also treated it as a burden like something that didn’t deserve it, the work never asked me to keep score but it just asked me to just keep showing up…

Watchwords:
The moment it was meant for passed while I decided,
Named it something smaller than it had been walking as,
Doubt is just the sound of being close to something real,
The ordinary beginning is how the larger one starts,
A privilege I keep almost giving back in hard seasons...