I don't do endings

Sometimes I wonder why I even started a blog.

I’m notorious for not finishing things. From projects to sentences to cups of coffee, I leave behind a trail of things that I began with great gusto and somehow lost interest in about four steps, words, or sips in. The last time I did my laundry, I got as far as pulling out the underwear on the top of the pile before I gave up and just lived out of my hamper until all of my clothing was dirty again. This happens so frequently that I just gave up and bought a second hamper. It’s easier this way.

And maybe I should be working on finishing things. Maybe I should be learning discipline. But I have bigger fish to fry than folding my t-shirts before they become perpetually creased. I can’t think of anything, but I’ll let you know if I do.

Fat chance that will happen. That involves finishing a thought process.

Sometimes I wonder why I even started a blog.

There was almost a yearlong gap between my last two posts. I got four posts in and lost interest. Or realized I had no time. Or maybe I forgot I even started. Regardless, I stopped. But I came back to the typed word last night. I’m not sure why I started writing again. Well, writing for other people to see. I have pages upon pages filled with thoughts and stories and speeches and letters that will never see the light of day. Because I don’t finish things. I don’t like maintaining and sustaining things that can’t take care of themselves. There is many an unfinished sentence marring the top of a new page in my journal. I always tell myself I’ll come back to it, that I’ll finish this time, that it’ll be different somehow.

And it never, ever is.

But this time, I came back to it. This time, I’m sticking with my blog.

Sometimes I wonder why I even started a blog. But I figured it out.

Writing is soothing. It’s the balm for a wound that I never knew I carried until I’ve finally finished crossing my i’s an dotting my t’s. It’s a way for me to be transparent with the world while still hiding part of myself away behind the keystrokes and the scribbles. Writing lets me be vulnerable and open in a way that I seldom let myself be. I’m not saying that every post is going to hard and heavy and terrible. I’m not looking for pity or for sympathy or for attention. I’m showing a part of myself that doesn’t typically manifest in my day to day.

I’m a pretty passionate person, I’ve been told. Intense about things that don’t really matter, like how people wrap headphones when they’re finished. In contrast, I’ve been told that I don’t care about the weirdest things. Like my phone or my computer or deadlines or grades. But there is a part of me that’s good at hiding that I’m bothered. That I’m stretched to my breaking point and moments away from adding college to the list of things I didn’t finish.

That’s why I started this blog. To get this itchiness to quit out of my chest and onto paper, because for all my ability to talk and speech, writing works best.

Granted, writing doesn’t fix everything. I’m still taking 18 credits and working three jobs. I’m still doing more than I should for an extracurricular. Still the chaplain of a society of seriously amazing girls who should not be looking at me for any sense of direction, because I am the worst example I can think of. Still passionate about the weird little things, still apathetic about some of the important things.  I’m still, for all the accolades I’ve received and know-how people seem to think I possess, just a scared little girl who can’t be bothered to fold her laundry.

I usually don’t have trouble with conclusions, ironically enough. I always know what I want the end product to be. Clothes folded and neatly tucked away in a too-small dresser. Coffee cup empty and in the dishwasher. Blog full of posts and maybe even readers. I guess I just get lost along the way. But this time, I’m having trouble with how I want this post to end. So I’m going to do something I don’t usually do and just end it, no tying in how I see God in this, because I’m still trying to put that into words. So I’ll let someone else finish it for me:

And when before His throne

I stand in Him complete

“Jesus died, my soul to save,”

My lips shall still repeat.

                                -Elvina Mable Hall, “Jesus Paid it All”

He’s good at finishing things, from Creation of His world to the sanctification of His children to the coming of His kingdom, God leaves nothing unfinished.

Okay, so maybe I was able to tie this up. But that’s not me. That’s God, for reasons I can’t even begin to comprehend, using me to talk of His goodness. Because He is good. And that goodness never finishes.