The World’s A Little Blurry: July 15

I’ve Always Thought That the World’s a Little Blurry

There is courage in beginning again.

We often celebrate finishing. We applaud graduations, promotions, victories, and milestones. We admire the people who reach the finish line, the ones who seem to have everything figured out. Rarely do we celebrate the person who chooses to start over.

Perhaps that’s because beginning again feels uncomfortable. It feels uncertain. Sometimes, it even feels like admitting that something didn’t work out the way we hoped it would.

For the longest time, I resisted beginning again.

I didn’t want to lose the progress I had already made. I feared looking inexperienced after finally becoming comfortable. I worried about what other people might think if I changed directions. Deep inside, I compared myself to people whose journeys appeared more straightforward than mine.

In my mind, starting over always felt like going backward.

But is it?

This year alone, I’ve found myself standing at the beginning of more chapters than I expected.

I’ve shared many of them in my previous reflections, but today, I want to talk about something different—not about starting something entirely new, but about having the courage to begin again.

Years ago, I dreamed of working in the United States as a medical technologist. That dream began in 2022, although if I’m being honest, I had dreamed of working abroad long before then.

Life, however, has a way of rewriting our timelines.

While I waited for that opportunity, I realized I couldn’t spend my life standing still. Waiting is not the same as living.

So, I chose to begin again.

I reviewed for the Medical Technology Licensure Examination on my own. I took the exam. By God’s grace, I passed.

Even after becoming licensed, I hesitated to apply for work.

“What if I get a call to leave for the United States next month?” I kept asking myself.

So I waited.

One month became several months.

Several months became a year.

The call never came.

Eventually, I realized I had been putting my life on hold for a future I couldn’t control.

So, I applied for a job.

Looking back, that wasn’t settling for less.

It was choosing to live faithfully with what God had placed before me.

Then came another beginning.

At twenty-five, I started this blog.

For years, writing had quietly lived inside me. It was something I loved but rarely shared with the world. My poems stayed inside notebooks. My stories remained unfinished. My thoughts lived safely in journals where no one could judge them.

Starting this website felt terrifying.

I wasn’t simply publishing essays.

I was allowing people to read pieces of my heart.

Still, I clicked “Publish.”

Not because I was fearless, but because I no longer wanted fear to make my decisions for me.

A few months later, I found myself beginning once again.

This time, as a financial advisor.

Looking at my journey from the outside, it probably doesn’t make much sense.

How does someone who graduated with a degree in Medical Technology become a laboratory professional, a blogger, a writer, a poet, and a financial advisor—all at the same time?

A few years ago, I wondered the same thing.

There was even a season when I seriously considered going to medical school.

Some dreams remained.

Others changed.

Some simply took on different forms.

Along the way, I returned to old manuscripts I had abandoned years ago. I rewrote stories I thought I had already given up on. I shared poems I had once been too afraid to let anyone read.

Every time I started again, I carried the same emotions.

Excitement.

Fear.

Doubt.

Hope.

Sometimes, all at once.

There were moments when my heart raced before clicking the “Publish” button. Moments when I questioned whether I was making the right decision. Moments when I wondered if it would have been easier to stay where I was comfortable.

But I chose to begin anyway.

Because somewhere along the journey, I realized something.

Beginning again doesn’t erase everything we’ve learned.

Every new beginning carries the lessons of every chapter that came before it.

The person who starts over today is not the same person who started years ago.

She is wiser.

Stronger.

More patient.

More resilient.

She carries victories that gave her confidence and failures that gave her humility.

Nothing is wasted.

Perhaps that’s why beginning again isn’t a sign of failure.

It’s evidence that hope still exists.

Sometimes beginning again looks like applying for another job after receiving a rejection.

Sometimes it looks like forgiving someone after carrying resentment for years.

Sometimes it is praying again after months of silence because you weren’t sure what to say to God anymore.

Sometimes it is opening a blank document and writing the first sentence after believing you’d never write again.

Sometimes it means moving to a new place, making new friends, returning to church, rebuilding your confidence, or learning to trust yourself after disappointment.

Beginning again wears many faces.

And I’ve learned that courage isn’t always loud.

Sometimes courage doesn’t roar.

Sometimes it barely whispers.

“Let’s try one more time.”

We often think courage means standing our ground.

Sometimes it does.

But sometimes courage means walking away.

Sometimes it means staying.

Sometimes it means admitting, “This chapter is over.”

And then, with trembling hands and hopeful hearts, opening another one.

I’ve always thought that the world’s a little blurry.

Maybe that’s because we often mistake beginnings for endings.

We assume that starting over means we’ve failed, when in reality, it may simply mean we’re being led somewhere new.

Every sunrise begins another day.

Every blank page begins another story.

Every prayer begins another conversation.

Every seed begins another forest.

Perhaps courage isn’t found in never falling.

Perhaps courage is found in standing up, brushing the dust from our knees, and choosing to begin again.

Because beginning again isn’t proof that we’ve failed.

Perhaps it’s proof that hope has survived.

And perhaps hope is what gives us the courage to believe that tomorrow can still become something beautiful.