I want to write. I do. Writing to me is (ready for the cliché?) like breathing: I can’t live without it. In my head I have a thousand different people (not in that scary, this-girl-needs-help kind of way) with a thousand different stories to tell. All of them paw for attention; plead for the chance to be free.
I keep them locked up.
It’s not that I haven’t tried to free them. I have. A billion times I have. What happens is I slip out a few paragraphs, and then I freeze. The story completely stops. It’s not writers block. It’s not laziness. (Okay. Maybe a little.) But fear. Blasted, mindless fear.
I think, Who am I to tell these stories? To pick up a pen and fill a page will silly words? What more, who would even want to read those silly words?
And there it is. My problem. What has always been my problem: a major lack of self-confidence.
I keep them locked up.
It’s not that I haven’t tried to free them. I have. A billion times I have. What happens is I slip out a few paragraphs, and then I freeze. The story completely stops. It’s not writers block. It’s not laziness. (Okay. Maybe a little.) But fear. Blasted, mindless fear.
I think, Who am I to tell these stories? To pick up a pen and fill a page will silly words? What more, who would even want to read those silly words?
And there it is. My problem. What has always been my problem: a major lack of self-confidence.
Okay. Not true. I am very confident in a lot of things: designing, teaching, traveling, learning, eating…
It is the things I wish to excel at that keep me holding back, which, as I write this, makes absolutely no sense. I mean, if I want something I should go for it, right? I should be spitting out prose and adjectives and dialogue like nobody’s business.
A few days ago, in reference to what I want to be doing with my twenty-five-year-old-self, my brother says, “Go. Do what you want to do. If you fail, at least you tried.”
He has also told me on countless occasions what a procrastinator I am. He doesn’t say it to be unkind, even if it does make me upset. Mostly, I think it makes me upset because it’s true. I procrastinate. A lot.
I intentionally procrastinate. Not so much because I’m lazy. I’m just afraid to fail, which - - in essence - - is exactly what I am doing by doing nothing.
So.
One foot forward, and no looking back.
It is the things I wish to excel at that keep me holding back, which, as I write this, makes absolutely no sense. I mean, if I want something I should go for it, right? I should be spitting out prose and adjectives and dialogue like nobody’s business.
A few days ago, in reference to what I want to be doing with my twenty-five-year-old-self, my brother says, “Go. Do what you want to do. If you fail, at least you tried.”
He has also told me on countless occasions what a procrastinator I am. He doesn’t say it to be unkind, even if it does make me upset. Mostly, I think it makes me upset because it’s true. I procrastinate. A lot.
I intentionally procrastinate. Not so much because I’m lazy. I’m just afraid to fail, which - - in essence - - is exactly what I am doing by doing nothing.
So.
One foot forward, and no looking back.
And if I fail? At least I tried.
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