Unfinished

The start of something is seductive and promising and spills off the tongue like some alliterative miracle. Because we all want to try something new. A new routine, a new hobby, or that book on the edge of your shelf, peeking out of the corner. I can always say yes to that book. But for how long?

Lately my limit—no matter how good the book, or interesting the plot—never exceeds 40 pages. Well, 150 at most—with the receipt (now bookmark) leering about a quarter or midway through the spine’s edge. Even poetry books with slender frames. In those sleek books—even a poem’s lines before I reach the volta.

I can find a stopping point anywhere with the silent tick of a black pen, that draws an arrow indicating where I have chosen to stop, often between words and not sentences. I have a problem, and I can identify it plain and simple: I have an inability to commit.

When someone asks me, have you ever read Oliver Twist? I reply, yes. Parts. Invisible Man? More than half. And I love it.

And love has nothing to do with it. I end my journey with a book not due to my lack of interest or inability to comprehend, or anything like that. I can’t commit because of the thrill of starting something else. New worlds, different people, other places. The thing is, I can never experience the totality or the fullness of that world I entered in its first few pages.

I am trying and will continue to try to finish a book. Because start-stopping is not for me anymore. I want to travel instead of stand in place—go somewhere instead of circle ‘round page 40. Right now I am reading Matthew McConaughey’s memoir, Greenlights. I love it, but I am considering abandonment.

I won’t, which is a green light in and of itself.