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There’s a room that exists only in the fourth dimension—not taking up square footage in my flat between the doggy dust bunnies and the clothing that I admittedly toss wherever when I’m exhausted, but in the disappointing space between what I planned to do and what I did. It is vast in the way that our sense of failure about ourselves is vast, and yet intimate in the way that hope for creativity is intimate. I’m this particular museum’s only curator, though I imagine such museums exist everywhere—or at least, for as long as humans have ambitions and fall, however far, short of our expectations.
Here sits the novel that I’ve been working on for five years, and became anxious about last night when I supposed someone was silently criticizing what they’d heard of it. Pages Last Modified: yesterday, 1:12 PM. Next to these novel revisions: not in the suite that’s been my home for the wet few weeks, but in memory of those incomplete journals that taught me how much I love bullet journaling and how I also find it so hard to keep up with the practice.
Here are the heartbreaks. I’m not sure if those count as unfinished things. (Come back to me when I’ve arrived at stronger conclusions about whether I believe in closure.)
If I look at my Substack folder of drafts, I see that I have (almost certainly an underestimation) 29 drafts that were begun and never finished.
So long ago, but not so long that it isn’t carved into my heart, my Mamma and the adults who were living with us at the time (I was a child; I was accustomed to having grown-ups come and go, sometimes after years) sat around. Someone had an acoustic guitar. People were smoking indoors. The carpet was rust-hued and felt like sandpaper because it was the 80s, but the plaid orange-and-white sofa was clearly from the 70s.
“Someday,” my Mamma said, “we’ll be able to have Pizza Hut whenever we want.”
And that was a dream for them, as I have dreams for myself.
or this:
I have a chronic and repeating issue with my right eye—it likes to erupt with abrasion and scratches on the cornea at seemingly random times—but always, seemingly, in my sleep. Two days ago, I woke with the same pain in my right eye. I did what the optthamalogist (sp) [cut short]
I didn’t choose to become an archivist of the unfinished. Consider me a person who’s naturally desirous of finishing at all costs. But as I grew more ill, the collection began accumulating bit by bit like sand—gritty, more different to walk in, and then slog. When I was younger, I was sure that every abandoned project of mine was evidence of a fundamental flaw. Then I became chronically ill and I realized that coming through with every whim was no longer something I could do. It’d be nice, sure, but only in the way “Things That Are Impossible Now” are nice.
I used to be so hard on myself, even when I was quite ill beginning in 2013 and wracked with some kind of bizarre illness, over the fact that I wasn’t getting enough done. But as I did more chronic-illness-oriented therapy, and as more time meant that the museum of incompletion kept expanding its wings and collected more and more artifacts, I began to understand something the productivity experts never mention: incompletion is work it, if only because it’s evidence of the human art of trying to make. The museum’s incomplete artifacts tell the story of a woman who continues to say yes to giving it a try, despite the evidence that I might not ever complete the project I’ve taken on.
When I visit a retrospective of an artist’s works at one of our city’s gorgeous art museums, the incomplete sketches and paintings hung up at the art museum alongside the finished works are just as dear to me as the finished Vermeer or Pollock or whatnot. To me, that’s hope in its rawest form; living with limitations means developing a different relationship with completion. Where others might see abandoned projects as evidence of failure, I see them as proof of making an effort despite all evidence to the contrary. Plus: starting a project doesn’t mean I’ll never finish it. I might one day pick up and finish drafts from years ago. They might also never be finished, and that’s okay.
Your Museum of Almost is not a gallery of failures. It is an archive of the courage required to start projects when you know you might not finish them. It indicates a life alive with possibility, and proof that you have not stopped reaching toward whatever truth and beauty that you were aiming for when you began.
The Museum of Almost is open whenever you need it. All hours open. No membership required. Perfectionism avoids the Museum of Almost, but could use a tour. When someone else questions your partial achievements, consider doing one of two things:
1.) Saying, “What would make you say a thing like that?”
2.) Inviting them to see the vision required to maintain such an archive of hope. Because we all need it, and not just in one form, either. ❤️
Subscribe to Reasons for Living for weekly meditations on finding beauty in limitation, meaning in the interrupted, and hope in the ongoing project of being human.
Subscribe to Reasons for Living with Esmé Weijun Wang for weekly meditations on finding beauty where we might not expect it—small and large reasons, in these terrible times, to live. Every other edition is paywalled (I try to not paywall as soon as possible), but I am indeed trying to make at least some of an income from this endeavor. If you’re able to commit $7/month for a paid subscription, please do (many a gift awaits!), and if you’d like to simply subscribe, go right ahead.
I am curious about the exhibitions in your own Museum of Almost. What abandoned project taught you something essential about who you are? What incomplete endeavor deserves more appreciation than it currently receives? I would be honored to hear about one piece from your collection.
God what beautiful writing. Thank you for the effort it took to gift this to us. I went on a screenwriting binge right before getting sick and I still think some of them were really good.
This comes at a very important time in my creative life. I’ve been avoiding my Museum of Almost that I’ve landed in the curse of Never Starting, which I do to prevent the personal disappointment of unfinished work, but comes with sadness at all my blank journals. This was just the motivation I needed to get theses things out of my brain and onto the page, to appreciate the fragments, the process, and let things settle and grow. 💖