In the spring of 2013, I returned to writing my soccerblog after a several-year hiatus. I published semi-regularly during April, May and early June of that year, but I also drafted a handful of pieces that I never published. Those pieces have been tapping for my attention ever since.
I recently set what seemed a semi-quixotic intention to finally publish them, despite them being about soccer-related happenings from almost three years ago. (Saying they're no longer topical is putting it mildly.) I saw it as an act of clearing out clutter. I figured it might be kind of weird from a reader's point of view, but worthwhile nonetheless.
Earlier today, for probably the first time since I stopped working on the pieces, I looked at the directory on my hard disk that they live in. The last of them is dated June 19th, 2013. June 19th, 2013, was three days after I arrived in Albuquerque to spend my dad's final dying weeks with him.
For three years, I've believed it was perfectionism that kept me from finishing those pieces, and the tapping for attention was just a nagging sort of self-blame. Today, when I saw that date, it struck me that perhaps I'd misunderstood why they never got finished, and that perhaps there's a bigger reason why there'd be value in finishing them.
2 thoughts on “Unfinished Business”