Draft Nineteen

On choosing to return

I have eighteen drafts.

Eighteen times I got close to something true, then abandoned it and walked away.

One week became two. Two became a month.

I kept opening files, writing a few lines, reading them back. The words didn’t sound like me anymore. Or maybe they did, and I just didn’t trust them.

So I kept starting over, trying to write as the person I was that day.

Then tomorrow would come.

Some days I convinced myself I was resting.
Other days I knew I was hiding.
Most days, I couldn’t tell the difference.

Somewhere between draft six and fourteen, you stop counting.

In the short time I’d been writing online, I forgot what it felt like to write without being watched. Without publishing.

Without deciding whether my words deserved a place in the world.

Writing turned into something I owed.
To the people who subscribed.
To the algorithm.

And caring about it became exhausting.

I could feel the pull to post more, to stay visible. I didn’t want that to be the reason I kept going.

I didn’t want to look up one day and see myself performing.

So I stopped.

Months passed. Life kept happening, and I was grateful to be in it.

We went on another cruise. Celebrated birthdays. Took road trips that turned into battlegrounds between mumble music and the ‘90s. Chose hotels just for their breakfast buffets.

And then one day, I knew.

If I didn’t return now, I never would. And I wasn’t willing to let that happen.

Writing is how I find myself.
Without it, I lose my way.

There’s a part of me that believes it was long enough to be forgotten. That whatever connection I thought we had was mostly timing, and now someone else has taken my place.

That I was replaceable all along.

And this could become draft nineteen, if I let it.

Maybe that’s the part no one says out loud. That the world keeps moving whether we show up or not. That no one is holding their breath. That the algorithm doesn’t care about you or me.

Maybe that’s the permission. To come back anyway. To take as many reintroductions as you need.

And this is one of mine.

★·.·´¯·.·𝒽𝒾 𝒶𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃·.·´¯·.·★

Wholeheartedly,
Nimo