Unfinished Business

The things I keep circling back to

There’s something about unfinished business that never lets me rest. I can tick off twenty things on my to-do list, but the one I leave hanging will hum louder than the rest. It’s like my brain doesn’t reward completion—it punishes absence.

And I’ve got a lot of absences.

I still think about the messages I typed out and deleted. The half-sincere apologies I rehearsed but never sent. The people I told myself I’d check up on, but didn’t. The essays I started, the journal entries I left mid-sentence, the ideas I swore I’d come back to “later.” Later never came.

Ghosts in My Drafts

My drafts folder feels like a graveyard. Not just the one on Substack or my phone, but the one in my head. There are paragraphs sitting there, unfinished, from nights when I thought I was being vulnerable—only to second-guess myself and hit save instead of publish. There are friendships I ghosted without explanation, thinking silence was softer than honesty. There are goals I pinned on my vision board, only to watch them fade with the months.

And the thing about unfinished business is that it doesn’t disappear when you ignore it. It lingers. It grows. That one draft becomes the “book I never wrote.” That one unsent text becomes the friendship I let rot.

They turn into ghosts that follow me around.

Why I Leave Things Hanging

Sometimes I blame fear. Finishing feels final. If I post the draft, it might not land the way I imagined. If I send the text, I can’t control the reply. If I close the chapter, it means admitting the story won’t continue.

Other times, it’s perfectionism. I don’t want to finish because I want it to stay perfect in my head. A half-written essay is still brilliant in theory; a published one risks disappointment. Same with relationships—imagined reconciliation always feels smoother than the messy, unpredictable real thing.

And sometimes? I just run out of energy. Life pulls me away, and by the time I look back, the moment is gone. The conversation is stale. The window has closed.

Carrying the Weight

The truth is, I carry my unfinished business like extra baggage. It creeps into quiet moments. I’ll be doing something random—washing dishes, scrolling aimlessly, sitting in class—and suddenly I’m replaying a conversation I should’ve had, a project I should’ve completed, a risk I should’ve taken.

It’s heavy in ways people don’t see. You laugh, you show up, you keep moving, but somewhere in the background, that unfinished business whispers, “You still owe me.”

Learning to Let Go

But maybe not everything needs to be finished. Maybe closure doesn’t always come in a neat bow. I think some things are meant to stay open-ended. A conversation cut short doesn’t always mean the bond is broken. A project left undone doesn’t always mean you failed—it just means it served its purpose in the moment and then released you.

I’m slowly learning to face my ghosts without shame. To open my drafts and smile at what I tried to write, even if I never hit publish. To remember that not every apology can be sent, and not every relationship can be repaired, and that’s okay. To give myself permission to leave some doors unlocked, instead of forcing myself to shut them completely.

Because maybe unfinished business isn’t a weakness. Maybe it’s proof that I’m still in motion. Still learning. Still rewriting myself. Still human.

And if I’m being real—aren’t we all just unfinished business anyway?