100 Reflections Later, What Actually Counts

3 min

I’ve been looking forward to writing this week’s piece for some time. Not because I had a particular reflection in mind, but because this would be the 100th issue of Kume Musings. Even though I’m sure many of you aren’t keeping track, it felt like a milestone, a personal one at least, and one that deserved to be marked, maybe even with the best piece yet. And with that, the pressure took root, followed by waves of uncertainty. Should I even acknowledge it publicly? Does it matter? Does it count?

I’ve been writing Kume Musings for three years now. When I first started, my hope was simple: one reflection each week. But life happened. There were seasons where I stepped back intentionally, scaling down my consumption and my output. And there were other times when I simply lost track. Weeks blurred into months until a reader would gently ask, “When is the next one coming?” And yet, here we are. One hundred reflections later, shaped by conversations with family, friends, strangers, and many of you in this community. That means something to me.

Still, I couldn’t help but notice the voice that crept in. You should have gotten here sooner. If you were truly consistent, this would have happened already. Maybe you are not as disciplined as you think. But the other day, I made a small decision. Instead of trying to write the best piece, I would simply write an honest one, about what this moment actually feels like. And almost instantly, I felt relief.

That decision led me to a question I’ve been sitting with: what does consistency really mean? Is it pushing through no matter what, producing no matter the season, never breaking the rhythm? Or is it returning, even after pauses, detours, or silence?

According to Merriam-Webster, consistent is defined as being marked by harmony, regularity, or steady continuity, and behaving in the same way over time. But I’ve been wondering what if consistency is not about never breaking, but about never abandoning. Because if I’m honest, these past three years have not been linear. They have been cyclical, expansive and then inward, expressive and then quiet. And still, this practice has held, not perfectly, not predictably, but faithfully.

There were mornings I sat down to write and nothing came, and others where the words arrived faster than I could hold them. There were pieces I almost did not publish, and pieces I did not think twice about that ended up reaching someone at exactly the right time. And then there were pieces that took time. Not hours or days, but months, sometimes even a year. There is one in particular I think about often, the piece I wrote about resisting and embracing my top value of beholderism. I remember the first time I tried to write it. I had the idea, the outline, even the intention, but something about it did not land. It felt premature, like I was reaching for clarity I had not yet lived into. So I left it. And over time, life gave me more to see, more to feel, more to understand. When I finally returned to that piece nearly a year later, it was different. I was different. What once felt like something I had to figure out had become something I could name, and when I wrote it again, it held. There was a clarity to it that had not been available to me before.

And maybe that is part of it too. You do not always know which moments are still forming, which ideas need more living before they can be expressed, and which pieces simply need time.

So no, I did not arrive at 100 the way I thought I would, but I arrived. Through pauses, through doubt, through returning again and again. And maybe that is the kind of consistency I want to practice, not one rooted in performance, but in presence, not one that demands perfection, but one that allows for life.

If you are in a season where your rhythm looks different, where your pace has slowed, where you have stepped away from something you once cared about, this is your reminder. It still counts. And you can always return.

100 reflections in, and still, we begin again

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