It’s not easy to start over. And it’s especially not easy to start over doing the same thing you were previously doing. Especially especially if and when you didn’t want to stop the thing in the first place.
I’m at a point in my life when I’m beginning anew with writing articles, sharing on social media, and just generally re-entering digital society.
I’m proud of the choices I made to hideaway. I had my reasons. And they were good reasons. I’d make the same choice if it were presented again today.
The person I’ve become as a result of what I had to let go of, stop doing, and shut down is a person I like. I’m proud of her. I admire her. I’ve worked hard to let her come out.
And yet, I repeat myself.
But I’ve already had this conversation. I’ve already explained my absence and promised that I’m a new person. And then I disappeared again.
I’m not an incredibly patient person. That’s a virtue that I still have a lot of work to do around. So maybe my previous re-introductions were just bad timing. Preemptive. The goopy mold rather than the butterfly.
As I write this, yet another re-introduction, I realize maybe we’re all just the goopy molds of our future selves. And the shape we have now is one the best goopy mold we can do at the moment. The practice is to keep showing up. To keep reflecting. To keep trying, dagnabbit.
I’m not learning this lesson easily. It’s frustrating to constantly put your own needs aside. To make an important part of yourself silent over a long period of time simply because there isn’t enough time.
This time is different.
This go round, however, the universe is helping me out in two distinct ways.
One: It gave me a beautiful reminder on my Insight Timer app. It was a quote that simply says “Begin again; that is the practice.”
The journey is simply starting over again. Being willing to start over. Open to something familiar yet new. Fearless to dive forward knowing not only some of the risks, but also that you don’t know all the risks.
Two: I recently discovered that the two decades of blogs and articles I wrote for myself were all deleted. All but one. One was saved. The rest…gone. I’m sure I have them on some outdated hard drive or old computer collecting dust in my attic. But it’s not worth getting out. It’s over. They’re gone. It’s done.
Years of thoughts, research, perspectives, creations, SEO visibility… all gone.
There’s a choice here. I can spend my precious time trying to find and republish them.
Or I can let them go and move on.
I know what I must do.
I choose moving on. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a lot of time. Or maybe it’s simply because it’s time.
Either way, I’m beginning again. Because that is the practice.
