LETTING THE UNFINISHED STAY UNFINISHED.
Things have been a little quieter around here lately. June was a bit of a blur. My energy just hasn't been in the best place. Rather than pushing through to produce and output, I've been listening to what I need in this season.
This has meant working in my studio without documenting everything I'm doing, spending more time with my boys while they're home for the summer and letting unfinished work stay, well, unfinished. If I'm honest, I don't love doing that. No doubt something for another time.
One of those unfinished things has been an essay about success. It started out just on the topic of success, but as I dug deeper it morphed into something bigger. It grew into self worth, identity, status and the borrowed definitions of success we acquire along the way. Success is pretty loaded and complex.
It took me somewhere I wasn't necessarily expecting to go, leaving me with a lot more questions than answers, both personally and culturally. The deeper I dug, the more layers were revealed. I liken it to a set of Russian nesting dolls. One layer opens to another, then another, then yet another before you finally reach the smallest one at the center. It takes time to work your way through all those layers.
At a certain point, I realized I was becoming more emotionally exhausted by the questions than energized by them. It became one of those Field Notes moments I couldn't quite make sense of no matter how many times I wrote and rewrote it. That's where I am. And maybe thinking too much and digging too deep doesn't always serve where we are on any given day. Sometimes I want to shut it all off, give that curious, inquisitive part of me a break and find a little peace and quiet.
Lately I've also found myself thinking about my relationship with summer. It's always been a complicated one. It feels like a tug of war between wanting to soak up life while it's happening and wanting to make something from it. The days seem to stretch on forever while the weeks somehow disappear. Life slows down and speeds up at the same time. I'm not exactly sure how that happens either.
For me, right now, that has meant showing up for what matters even when I haven't felt 100%. Leaving an unfinished painting on the easel. Letting the essay rest because I need more time to live with it before I can write it. Stepping back from a business opportunity because something in me said, "Not right now." I'm learning to be more comfortable with the unfinished.
So that's what I'm doing today. Instead of hitting my head against a wall trying to finish the painting or the essay, I'm going to let them rest. I'm going to spend some more time with my boys. I'm going to spend some time simply living my life without feeling the need to document it all. Maybe some things just need a little more time before they're ready. Maybe I need a little more time to just be.
It feels like a nice, long exhale.
xx,
Michel