"Beginnings are scary, endings are sad, but it's the middle that counts" is one of my favorite quotes from the movie Hope Floats.
There is something to be said about beginnings. Yes they are scary, the fear of the unknown is incredibly petrifying. Sometimes beginnings start with a clean slate and sometimes they start with a choice to move forward. I'd like to think my beginnings start like a new book. I love to read and there's nothing like going to the book store and looking around to find something new that catches your eye. Maybe it's the title or the cover photo, maybe you look through new releases from your favorite author or maybe you skim the quotes on the backside which entail a summary of basically why this book you're holding is a book you should read. When I find a new book I feel excited and anxious to open that book and begin again.
So here I am, starting a new book. Anyone that reads also knows that when you begin reading a new book it takes some time to get into it. At first as a reader you're trying to make sense of the setting and characters. I often times will start a book and maybe become frustrated or uninterested and set it down for a few days. Even if it catches my attention and I become enthralled with the words across the pages, it's really not until at least a third of the way through I feel committed to that book. It takes time, but somewhere along the way of highlighting or writing in the margins the book becomes known to me. I begin to feel attached to the story. Until that happens, I think I just go through the motions of reading. I try to piece together the story and turn the pages.
My beginning feels like that right now. I have a book, a new and exciting book I'm looking forward to reading but as I thumb through the pages I feel confused, lost, uncertain, maybe at times uninterested but at this point in my life I keep reminding myself to turn the pages. I have my favorite books, novels that I could recall line by line. Those books are familiar, they are known.
It is brave to start a new beginning but it is also scary. I have gotten through so much in the last two years of my life. I have grown, I have changed and I have developed into a person I am proud of. I know I can't put down this new book. I know I need to try to begin again.
