The truth of it is I am scared. I'm thirty three years old, well past the years when fear is "acceptable", yet I am. Utterly and totally afraid.
Of what? I'm afraid I'll not be taken seriously as a writer. Afraid I'll say the wrong thing. Afraid I'll talk too much about cancer and death and grief. Afraid my audience knew me as the photographer, when all I want is for them to know me. The person. The deeper stuff. I'm afraid to finish my memoir, and yet afraid I'll forever find something more important to do than it. I'm afraid once it's done I'll never find a publisher. Afraid of what my words will do. Who they might hurt. I'm afraid to reveal the me who is so, stinking, afraid all the time. I'm just plain scared of the lot of it.
And yet here I am, putting more words to screen, thinking about all the things I'd like to say to you, everything on my heart, and still I write about fear.
Because too often there are wounds that cut deep, a cruel thing someone said ten years ago, a harsh judgment placed in high school. As an emotional being who feels it all and senses, it all, these wounds have turned to scars. They're still there. Mostly covered up but still tender to the touch. I can feel them, in fact, when pressed just the right way.
Big Magic talks a lot of fear, so much so I was nodding and highlighting and underlining for days. It's just that good.
Now it's time to take control. Take the reigns. Stop being so afraid and stop the comparison game and stop living in a world where fear controls me. Because that world is boring, and dreary, and I get very little done when I linger there.
Packing my bags to head on out. It's a good day to be alive and it's a good day to be fearless.