Day 9

For years I have been telling myself that it is okay not to finish projects that I start... mainly because I NEVER finish a project I start. My inner dialogue goes something like this:

"Don't worry about finishing that mosaic/painting/tiling/story writing/knitting/renovation. It is the process of doing the project that is worthwhile, not the actual outcome from it."

This conversation has occurred among my cerebrum so many times that I think I was actually believing it whole-heartedly. Wondering what it would be like to actually finish something, this morning I took the liberty to freeze my fingertips nearly off while finishing a long-overdue project from my past.

This project was to create a banner of encouragement and display it for all to see. I began this project nearly a year and a half ago when inspired by my friend, Sarah's, own banner she created while in Limoges. Like all of my projects, I worked diligently for days until it was nearly complete.... that's typically where my perpetual abandonment arises.

For many months I haven't even thought about this project, although it sits neatly in a pile on a bench in my living room... partially displayed. However, waking up this morning with my impending experiences on the brain (I think I am even dreaming about them now), I realized that it would be great to know what it felt like to FINISH something.

With my heavy-duty mittens and some plastic ties, I put up each letter one by one, taking care not to make it too crooked and removing dead branches from obstructing onlookers' views. Now I am the proud owner of a colorful banner of encouragement lined on my chain link fence, facing the highway in hopes of some eyes wondering.

The experience that I have endured today is not so much about the banner itself, although I am proud of it and hope so deeply that it gets the attention everyone deserves; but, rather, the notion of finishing something that I have started. I'm not quite sure where that part of my character was developed or if I was always that way, but I don't necessarily feel that it is only the journey of the experience anymore.

Sometimes it is the outcome as well.

Sometimes the outcome can give you an entirely new feeling about the whole project itself. Sometimes the completion of a project elicits strong emotions of joy simply from the act of knowing it is done.