The Museum of Almosts: In Defense of Not Finishing Things

Welcome to the Museum of Almosts. Please don’t touch anything, everything here is still fragile.
I built it accidentally, over years of enthusiasm and quiet abandon. It started with a few forgotten folders, a sketchbook, and dreams I told myself I’d return to “once things settle down.” They never did, of course. So, instead, I’ve learned to curate the unfinished. To walk through the museum with a kind of reverence, as though incompletion itself deserves applause.

Room One: The Hobbies

Here lies the graveyard of my enthusiasm. This room is an exhibit full of dried paintbrushes, my calligraphy kit, and a keyboard gathering dust under the weight of unlearned chords.
For me, hobbies are just like collecting souvenirs from lives I never fully lived. Watercolor. Journaling. Calligraphy. Baking. The thrill is always in the first 20%. After that, it feels like commitment, and that’s where I quietly bow out. Some people finish things to feel accomplished. I start things to feel alive.

Room Two: The Drafts

If you listen closely, you can hear the soft hum of unfinished stories here. Files that I have renamed final_final(3), notes that begin mid-sentence, and poems that trail off after a metaphor gets tired.
The Draft Room is crowded, but not in a sad way. I think that it’s alive with possibility. Every half-told story feels like a promise to my future self: “We’ll finish this one day.” Maybe I never do. Maybe that’s fine. Because some words were meant to stretch their legs, not arrive anywhere.

Room Three: The People

This is the quietest room.
The air feels thick with what-ifs. People who almost became friends, almost lovers, almost permanent. Some linger in the corner of memory, others fade like a cheap perfume.
We exchanged playlists and confessions and then went our separate ways, promising to “stay in touch.” We never did. But I like to think of them as exhibits too, for they are suspended in glass, preserved in their almostness. There’s beauty in a connection that never had the chance to disappoint you.

Room Four: The Dreams

Here hang the framed ambitions! The degrees I didn’t pursue, the dream jobs that stayed in the ‘saved jobs’ folder, the versions of success I outgrew before I even arrived.
There was a time I thought unfinished dreams were proof of failure. Now, I see them as some sort of rehearsals. They are the things I tried on before finding a version of life that actually fit.
Dreams don’t die here. They just keep breathing.

Room Five: The Versions Of Me

This room feels crowded.
The “me” who wanted to be a novelist. The me who thought she’d move to another country. The me who once believed routine would save her.
They all live here, smiling faintly, like mannequins that I once wore on my skin.
It’s strange how we outgrow ourselves without meaning to but I love visiting these versions of myself. They remind me that identity, too, is an unfinished art.

Room Six: The Conversations That Went Nowhere

Static chats and conversations, ellipses that waited too long. People I almost got to know better.
We send “haha”s and “no worries”s and then vanish.
But I’ve learned that not every conversation needs a resolution. Some connections exist purely in potential and that, too, is a kind of beauty.

Room Seven: The Gift Shop

Here, I sell postcards of unfinished paintings and candles that burn unevenly. Visitors buy one every time they are around.
I used to think I was scattered, a chronic quitter, a hoarder of half-finished things. But maybe I’m just someone who believes in beginnings more than endings. After all, not finishing doesn’t mean failing. Sometimes, it just means knowing when to walk away or when to leave something open enough to come back to later.

So I lock the museum doors gently, promise to return next week, and walk out carrying the quiet relief of knowing that incompletion just like life is an art form all its own.