My Characters

Today I found an old journal on my bookshelf, which I mostly used in my senior year of high school to scribble bits of stories I was working on at the time... and, to be honest, am still working on, very very slowly. It was fun reading them because they reminded me how real and vivid the characters have always been to me, though I'm still developing them today.
I actually have four main sets of characters that I like to write about and think about, and I occasionally write bits in journals or on my computer about them and potential adventures or experiences they have. It's sometimes frustrating to work so very slowly and pathetically on these stories; I can never really give myself the head-space to dedicate large amounts of time to them, but I always have them in the back of my mind.
It's because of the characters. They are so important and real to me, all so very different, and I want to be a vessel for them to pour out of but I just can't be that right now. I can't be a vessel for their stories, maybe because I myself am too tangled and troubled by my own story to focus fully on them.
But they're there. They are real. And it's my dream that one day things will line up inside me and the stories will all pour out, and with them whole worlds.