Maybe It Was Never the Space

At some point, every new beginning asks you to face what you keep leaving behind.

The space an artist chooses to create in becomes sacred. A place to heal the wounds life shows them over time. A space to make love so good earthquakes forget it was their job to do the shaking. A space with works in progress, books of theory, unfinished water cups, and tons of what has yet to be created.

When an artist finds a rhythm, he locks himself there. Everything in his life becomes an IRL DND. The music is going, vibrato be the pulse of blood flowing through his veins. He hasn’t seen light in days. He goes from project to project, moving about the room because this could be the one. The masterpiece. And he’ll sit on the stool, surrounded by all his doing, still unsatisfied and thinking something is missing, that something isn’t right.

It never is for him.

He’ll rip the canvas. Shred the notes he took. Throw the water cups across the room. In fury: Why can’t I just get it right? Why can’t I create what I see in my mind? Why is it so hard for me? They did it. They do it. Why can’t I?

This spiral is a series of exchanges he’s attached his worth to. The things he puts on DND are the very things he doesn’t have to do, the things he doesn’t have to show up for. They make him uncomfortable because he doesn’t understand. How could they love him, make space for him, see him, if he can’t do all that for himself?

He’ll deem himself unworthy.

And throughout it all, he’ll watch the dump truck drive away with everything he’s poured himself into, tears streaming down his face. That will be the first peak of light he’s seen in days. He’ll numb himself to sleep and wake up wondering where everything went.

When you start again, you have to confront the mess you made first.

But when you start over, you can leave the mess.

An easy solution.

A quick fix. Or so it may seem in the interim.

But unless you’re cleaning as you go, that space will get messy too.

When you choose to start again, you look at the mess you’ve created and sit in the middle of it. You may feel overwhelmed by all of it, so you pick one spot to gather first, then the next, and then the next until the mess is clean.

Will it get messy again? Yes.

But because you’ve been in the mess before and cleaned it up, you can choose to create systems that help you make a different choice next time.

When you choose to stay, sometimes that choice comes with the hardest part of all. Often the determining factor between the two.

You must ask for help.

Express a desire. Express a want. Express a need.

And you hope the people in the space with you choose to clean and stay too.

But it doesn’t always happen that way.

Starting new feels good at first. It taps into that dopamine and adrenaline your body desperately craves. It has you scrolling Pinterest looking for “live, laugh, love” quotes and “healing looks good on you.” But just because the mess you left is in the rearview doesn’t mean you don’t see it. It will show up in the new space too.

Once it isn’t shiny anymore, new and easy, your inconsistency will show up. And what you first tidied and tended to will become things you say you’ll get to... one day. And one day becomes five, and then months, and then never, because the messes you create make you uncomfortable. So you leave instead of addressing what caused the mess.

Especially when you know exactly how to sort it out and return order.

Maybe at one point someone shamed you for having mess. Made it such a big thing that you no longer want extra eyes on it. A thing you don’t want anyone else to hold…but you.

Once the new beginning no longer feels like a fresh start, you’ll begin seeing everything you left in everything you do. You’ll start handling it rougher when you once treated it like something worth having. Your irritation will grow faster when you first promised slow and intentional curation.

You’ll come around less and less and find every excuse as to why you haven’t been back.

One day that space is going to lock its door on you.

And you’ll sit outside wondering how you had the key and still couldn’t open the door.

You’ll watch through the screen at the trail of mess you left behind this time, and it’ll hit you that it’s not the first time you’ve seen it.

But it’s the first time you’ve been locked out.

It shows up as the same lesson in different ways.

In the Bible, wisdom is often tied to stewardship. Proverbs warns against the consequences of neglecting your surroundings, describing how disorder can take root when what has been entrusted to us is left untended (Proverbs 24:30–31). Later, the virtuous woman is praised because she “watches over the affairs of her household” (Proverbs 31:27), and in 1 Timothy 3:5, caring well for one’s home is presented as evidence of being able to care for greater responsibilities.

The Quran offers a different but complementary reminder: “There is no blame on you for what you do by mistake, but only for what you do intentionally” (Surah Al-Ahzab 33:5). At some point, what was once an accident becomes a choice. What was once oversight becomes neglect.

In Hinduism, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad teaches that “a man acts according to the desires to which he clings” (4.4.5). The things we repeatedly choose shape the lives we eventually inherit. We do not simply leave our habits behind; we carry them with us.

And in Judaism there is a saying: “As long as the candle is still burning, it is still possible to accomplish and to mend.”

To mend.

Not replace.

Not abandon.

Not start over.

To mend.

Even Aaliyah, in her own way, echoed the same truth: “If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again.”

Across centuries, cultures, faiths, and songs, the invitation seems remarkably similar:

Return to the room.

Clean up the pile.

Light the candle again.

And begin where you left off. And if it’s been so long since where you left off, you can choose to start anew from this moment and create something stronger.

All extend the grace that space once represented.

When you first entered it, you wore your best outfit. Brushed your hair, washed your face, and showed up with flowers to adorn it. An offering that said, for as long as I am here, you shall have life.

And life shall be a representation of what is created here.

But after a while, too much from the outside got in. It left muddy footprints you never made time to clean. Candles burned beyond their wicks, and the flower vase hasn’t been filled in so long.

The space forgot what life looked like, but held so much of it.

And it still welcomed you.

Still offered you a place to rest.

Still fed you when you decided nourishment was only a reward for accomplishment. Or when you feel like you deserved.

Still sang the songs of who you were so you wouldn’t think it was that hard to return.

That space has seen so many different assignments you’ve brought back. So much hurt you never released but leaked behind your every move.

And it still embraced you.

Not because of what you do, but because it did.

And as long as you unlocked the door and were brave enough to come in, it welcomed you.

Just because you left the other mess doesn’t mean it’s no longer there. It’s just another thing you’ve left for someone else to deal with.

And the mess won’t clean itself.

There will be a person who comes in to pick up the pieces you left to pile. And they’ll think, how could anyone just leave this here? How long were they here to have this much mess? Did they have no one to teach them how to clean?

They’ll pick up the frames that once held pictures of moments you swore you wanted to last forever.

And they’ll turn them over to see the note etched on the back.

They’ll wonder if you ever saw it.

If you ever stopped to admire it before you put it on the shelf as a memory.

As something that used to be.

They’ll look around at the pile and think they’ve hit a jackpot.

Ain’t that funny?

How someone else’s trash can be someone else’s treasure?

How someone can walk into a space you once occupied and see the value instantly, while you never could.

Or you forgot as the mess got bigger.

How all of the joy you claimed couldn’t exist there just needed a little tidying to be seen. How some of the greatest love and joys are already resting alongside us, there, just waiting for us to see them.

One day you’ll come back to that place, and the door will be locked as you drag the pieces you managed to keep from your new place.

And it will be so tidy.

The windows will be open as the curtains sway against the vinyl spinning on the record player. You’ll think you’ve seen a ghost as the treasure sways to the music and the light wraps its way around it.

I’m unsure if you’ll see it and wish you’d tried to clean the mess up, or claim you had to leave to see what it could’ve been.

Standing in the middle of the mess felt daunting and exhausting and hard.

No one ever sat with you and worked alongside you to clean.

Only barked demands that made it harder. Pointing out what you had already seen for yourself.

So when someone finally tried to sit with you in the mess, you panicked.

Retreated.

Because if they’re offering, then they can see.

And that’s too much exposure.

And you wouldn’t dare let them see you bare. Naked of all the masks you’ve worn to survive.

And you’re so used to starting anew that it becomes a choice you’ll have to confront in every space you enter.

Because how could someone possibly stand in the mess with you and think it’s worth anything?

Think it’d be worth cleaning?

And you’ll be so ashamed of the mess that you’ll take that as a direct attack on yourself. Self-blame will weigh down the very thing this space was born to foster.

Understanding.

And life lived.

The space may not be exactly the same as when you first entered, but the bones you remember are still there. The frames will hang nonetheless, but only if you continue rehanging them. And when the wire on the back has worn thin from time, you choose to place it on the side table instead of leaving it on the floor.

Staying, gives room to welcome change.

Gives room for reflection.

That space becomes a place of dedication and curation.

A space that once had piles you chose to avoid but one day realized that no matter where you went to start anew, those piles would show up again wearing different clothes.

And you’ll have replicas of what existed in the piles you left, but it’ll never feel quite as good.

You’ll find the same music box and turn the knob, only to discover the song it played—or the song you hoped to hear while reaching for something familiar—is missing the thing that made you remember.

The thing that made it memorable in the first place.

Don’t spend your life starting over if there is a mess that is cleanable and you have someone willing to help you clean it, no matter how long it takes.

Pile after pile.

Find joy in discovering the very things that used to make you smile and laugh and think, I’m so glad I stayed to clean the mess, even if it took me a million tries.

Because life gets messy.

And adding things to your life makes it messier.

That is just a fact you can’t run away from.

How you choose to clean the mess is what matters.

Sitting with each pile, one by one, choosing what stays, what leaves, and what can be replaced to make this space everything it needs to be to foster what it was meant to.

So yes, starting over feels good.

Rebranding feels like alignment.

Until slow season hits again and you have to move the flowers to a new window so they can get the little light the space now offers, and you’re still trying to figure out why they aren’t thriving the way they used to.

And that, is a real life’s work. Not the very things that grant fame and accolades but a life that looks like dedication. Not in finding spaces that never get messy. Not finding people who never disappoint you. Not becoming someone who never makes mistakes. And not leaving the flowers you promised life, to die in a window that no longer feeds them.

But learning that everything worthwhile eventually asks for maintenance.

The relationship.
The dream.
The friendship.
The faith.
The work.
Yourself.

At some point, all of them will hand you a broom and ask whether you’re staying.

And maybe maturity isn’t knowing how to begin.

Maybe it’s knowing how to return.

Again.

And again.

And again.

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