Somewhere Between Quitting and Trying
A note on quitting, starting again, and everything in between.
Life is overflowing with lessons, adventures, and wonders waiting to be discovered. That’s why it stings to admit I dropped my language classes. French and Portuguese had filled my thoughts before summer arrived, but my tinnitus took over, and I realized risking my GPA for something I could learn later wasn’t wise. As a design major who still fumbles with tech, I decided to pour my energy into mastering design software this summer. This isn’t really about academics, though. It’s about perseverance, which feels strange to say after confessing to quitting. But what if I told you it was almost effortless to let go? The money and time lost didn’t matter as much as the relief of not feeling like a miserable old lady or repeating my past of dropping out for a semester. Maybe I didn’t quit at all. Maybe I just shifted my focus.
I started drawing and painting as a child, like so many others, but I can’t remember the last time I truly enjoyed it. Art was always something I began but never finished. In facing this, I realized my favorite way to procrastinate is to dive into something else, anything to avoid what I should be doing. It’s a painful loop, convincing myself I’m busy while drowning in distractions of my own making. Imagine living like this for years.
This isn’t a cure for procrastination, but it’s my own reckoning. It has to end, for my own peace of mind. So I’m taking the first step: drawing every day, letting music in foreign languages I once hoped to learn fill the background. It’s not that I never will learn them, but for now, I choose to stay. Committing to something from my childhood feels more responsible than chasing something new every day. If I can take art classes, I will. If I can visit galleries, I will. I’ll find comfort in knowing my ears are holding me back from some things, but guiding me back to a life I cherished as a child. So why not rediscover it now? I want to see what it feels like to wander the city, to play with paints and colours whose names I never learned.
The sadness will fade.