Finishing

I have a confession to make. 

I never finish anything I start.

• Man-Uptober was a bust by day 6.
• I was going to make a dress for the local Trashion Show (which was this weekend), and had planned it out and collected rubbish and even snagged a model.  I cut a few pieces of builder's paper to length and never did anything else, despite having something like 5 months to work on it.
• I bought canvases and paints, and have spent a total of one morning painting.  Almost a victory for me.
• I once bought beads and all sorts of stuff for making jewelry, but stopped after a month or so.
• Years and years ago, I got my hands on a second hand trumpet, and a bamboo flute, and a guitar.  Because I would teach myself to play them, of course.  Which I never did.  I used to play the saxophone, but I am not naturally musical. 
• The biggest unfinished thing in my life, though, is writing.  I have been writing since I was 12 or 13 years old, when I decided I wanted to be an author.  Guess how many novels, short stories, essays, etc I have finished.  0.  If I get close, I rip it up and start again.  In all honesty though, I doubt a 12 or 13 year old could actually write a publishable novel.  I certainly couldn't.

It doesn't seem to matter if I set deadlines for myself, if I have someone else to keep me on task, or if there is some concrete deadline.  I just can't commit.  Sometimes I get bored, sometimes I lose confidence in my abilities, sometimes I am just easily distracted.  Maybe I try too many things at once and set out to fail immediately.  Or perhaps my love is in the dreaming, that imagining doing something is somehow better than actually doing it.  It is something that drives me a little bit crazy about myself.

Some months ago I decided I would run the local 10k in October.  I started training.  I ran a 5k, then a 6k.  Then my running kept delaying my ovulation and throwing off our timing, and I cut back.  Then I sort of stopped any sort of regular running.  Getting in a family way seemed more important than that 10k goal.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.  It is something I have been debating for quite some time.  But instead of piking out, which I really, really wanted to do (and I had a few excuses on hand just ready to be used), today I walked the 10k.  As in power walked.  With no real training leading up to it.  Yes, I was doing it with a friend, who was going to run with me, but her training sort of stopped when mine did, and she really wanted to do it.  But I still could have backed out.  Disappointing her probably wouldn't have stopped me.  But I finished the 10k.  I went down to the sports club, registered, walked as fast as I could for 10k with my friend, and finished at 1 hour 31 minutes (which is probably the same time I would have got had I jogged it). 

I finished something.  Not the way I had set out to finish it, but still.  I finished it.

We having been trying to conceive now for a year and a half on our own.  We've had two, probably three chemical pregnancies.  I have been charting since May.  My life has broken down into period week, ovulation week, and the two week wait.  It is stressful.  It eats up my free time.  Well, maybe poor choices about google use and pregnancy/infertility topics eats up my free time.  But it is unbelievably hard, and I am still in the minors.  Even now, on the verge of being called up to the majors, well...it is hard.  There are times when I want to quit.  When I want to say screw it and just carry on with my life.  When I wonder if this is really what I want.  If I have to work so hard for it, will I appreciate it more, or will I resent it?  Because I never in a million years thought that this would be something I would have to work hard for.  

The first few kilometres are always the hardest as you adjust to what your body and mind have to do.  I think the first few brush strokes, the first few notes, the first few steps of any new thing are hard.  Self doubt creeps in.  Distractions are everywhere.  "I'll do it later."  "I haven't got enough time right now."  Insert excellent well thought out excuse. 

I am going to finish things.   No.  "Going to" implies someday, maybe far into the future.  So I will.  I will finish things.
I will carry on with this blog.
I will be active, to improve my health.  Running or walking.  I will be flexible, but I will be consistent. 
I will continue to try to lose weight.  Kilojoules counting at least until my appointment with the dietitian, and then maybe I will have a new plan to follow.
I will finish this trying to conceive thing, one way or another, one day or another.
I will finish what I started as a kid, and I will write a novel/short story/essay/anything really, and I will try to get it published.

And next year, I will train, and I will run the 10k.  Unless I am 9 months pregnant, or have just given birth or something.  Which I think is a damned acceptable excuse.