I tried to finish. I did.
I have a book about a kitten. It only needs a bit of editing. I love this book about how my terrified little kitten found a way to live through it and how I knew exactly how he felt as he ran and hid.
I wrote another book about how Mike and I fell in love, how so much of who I became began with him on a lake or river in a canoe. I wrote our love story.
I wrote almost the whole story about my dad, what he taught me and how he died. I never finished because I didn’t know how to end that book. It hurt but it was a balm to write about him.
I had other stories, something I wrote for Nick before Mike made me realize he’d never read it. It was my funniest book.
There were others, characters who I loved, one character who terrified me. He was too real. There was an alien. What will happen to her?
I tried to finish, I tried, but so many nights I lie awake, surrounded by the notebooks, the binders, and reams of stories printed on green paper. I lie in the dark and realize that when I die, they’ll turn to dust as I do.
I’ll die and no one will ever read them. I regret not finishing. I wish I could let it go, but I can’t. No one cares if I wrote.
I don’t know why it matters, but it kills me that no one will ever read those words.
Thank you for listening, jules