Plans That Sounded Good - April 7 2025

 

Plans That Sounded Good

April 7 2025



So many half finished things around me

I try hard not to see,

the false starts

welcome interruptions

plans that sounded good.

Will I, too, end unfinished?

Will my time run out before I’m done;

regrets unaddressed

ambitions unachieved,

my life project

incomplete?

I suppose that’s true for all of us.

We’re all poems

you can revise time after time

and still not feel satisfied

because poems are never quite right.

There’s always something to fix, tweak, or delete.

Something better said.

Or something you wish you’d never confessed,

or regret

you’d kept to yourself,

too cowardly

to come clean.

But I think my problem wasn’t leaving things unfinished

it was waiting to begin.

Putting in so much time

waiting for life to start;

for the the gun to fire,

the sign appear,

the curtain rise.

Treading water

and keeping my head up just enough

to breathe,

while the entire time

I was foolishly blind

to the tide taking me out.

Yet even the best life, a life well-lived

ends before it’s finished.

Because who’s truly ready for their curtain call?

But then, perhaps the showman had it right

when he said leave them wanting more.

Or at least don’t leave them relieved

to see you gone.

The few polite souls

who were raised right

and are still in their seats

applauding half-heartedly

before hurrying up the aisle.

Of course, some actually are ready for that curtain call. Perhaps just tired of life. Or, if they’re lucky, satisfied with it: no regrets; surrounded by loving family; well-cared for to the end. Dying in your sleep, having found meaning, peace, and a sense of completion. How enviable! And, I think, rare.

Or perhaps the mind, in its wisdom, anaesthetizes us to the consequence of that process and that moment: the way we don’t feel pain when we’re badly hurt or fighting for survival because our brain is flooded with adrenaline, endorphins, and forgetfulness. (But how evolution would select for this I have no idea!)

Anyway, I guess the solution to unfinished business is to live life as well as you can and let the end — ready or not — take care of itself.