old jeans

Today i finally pulled out an old pair of jeans from my closet and tossed them on the window seat in my bed-room. Before i flung them there i pulled them on. They didn't button. Yet i looked at them longingly yearning to justify pushing them back into my closet. I remembered how they looked and felt on that sunny day a decade ago. I sighed and placed next to them a threadbare, faded, green sweatshirt along with some soft, often washed t-shirts. Keep that one at least a tiny voice pleaded.  

There are things outside and inside that i hang onto. Attached to them are memories and parts of me that i do not fit into anymore but cannot yet bear letting go of. I know that to invite in the new i need to make room in my inner closet. But multiple fears lurk. 

What if i throw it all away, my inner closet stands bare, summoning in the new, but i find nothing that fits? The work to find the new feels impossible, exhausting, undoable. I don't know where to begin. Shouldn't i just hang on to the old then?

I am scared that i have reached the end. That i have nothing left within to find new 'things'. That i have given it all i possibly can and disappointed though i maybe with what i have it is the limit of what i am. 

And even if there is more i can be i am too tired to cast out the old and start anew. I have put one foot out but the other one feels like solid lead, dragging and afraid to follow.

Can i really do that workshop? It's been so long and i may be terrible at it now. What if everyone laughs or worse no-one does? Ya, what if they sit silently and say nothing at all?

The book sucks. Especially the beginning that i wrote two years ago. It feels so amateurish. I must have grown somewhat to recognise this now since at that time i thought it was wonderful. But oh no, an entire re-write. No... No... No...

And is it really what i want to spend my days writing? Wasn't that just the practice canvass and i need now to find my life's work? But how can i let two years of work just go? I loved it once and still i do. Is there anything more than this which felt so brilliant, joyful and even complete once?

And so it goes. 

But the jeans sit on the window seat. A strong afternoon sunlight filtered through sheer green curtains drops across them. A torn belt loop, frayed wide bottoms, comfortable faded blue denim worn with countless, coloured tops. Goodbye.