Work in progress

Before I understood what writing really was, I thought the goal was to get it right on the first try. No edits, no red pen marks-just a perfect draft, finished and final.

So when every in-progress assignment in middle school had to be labeled the same way:
FirstName_LastName_WIP - it drove me crazy.

Those three letters quietly implied: this isn’t finished. This could be better. This is still becoming.

And for someone who craves a perfect end result, “WIP” is daunting.

There’s a certain comfort in closure. Checking the box, tying the bow, calling something finished.

But real life rarely offers that luxury.

It's more like a growing collection of drafts- some that evolve over time, others that never quite take shape the way they were supposed to.

Some questions don’t get answered. Some texts go unanswered. Some apologies never come.

It’s tempting to rush through the process. To get to the part where everything feels certain. To land in the perfect city, the right relationship, the clear career path.

There’s this silent pressure to arrive, as if arrival means worthiness.

Yet most of the time, life is somewhere in the middle of the sentence.

The idea of never knowing-or not being quite enough-was (and still is) hard to accept.

But being a work in progress isn’t a flaw. It’s part of the design.

The in-between holds its own kind of beauty. There’s space to move, to stretch, to shift directions.

There’s freedom in not being finalized.

All those unfinished drafts- whether tucked into folders or quietly unfolding in everyday life-aren’t failures. They’re traces of what’s still possible.

Evidence of becoming.

“WIP” doesn’t have to mean you’re behind. It can mean you’re still building.

Not broken. Just in motion.

Not perfect. But real.