The Fear

I came home from BlogHer 11 with three posts percolating. The first is already half written, a capture of a snapshot in time. The second is brewed in my head, a retrospective filled with revelations on Why Stuffing 3000 Introverts Into A Room With Alcohol Might Be A Good Idea. Or Not. And the third is this one.

I have spent most of my life afraid.

How’s that for an opening line?

My entire life, I have been afraid of everything. Doing something wrong. Doing something right. Having it all be my fault. Having nothing to do with it being my fault whatsoever, but knowing if I had been involved then whatever went wrong would have by definition been my fault, so somehow magically shifting it in my brain to having me take the blame anyway. Saying the wrong thing. Being Too Dramatic. Being too goofy. Being too emotional. Being altogether too ME, which somewhere along the line became a Highly Objectionable thing, at least as far as I was concerned, and as far as those around me were concerned as well, or at least that’s what I believed.

And god, it’s tiring.

*******************************

This post was a lot better when I was writing it in my head in bed earlier. 8:30 pm, to be exact, the earlyish end to an exceptionally long day. I had crawled into my favorite pyjamas, the ones with the glow in the dark dogs on them (for some reason I feel that detail is highly relevant) and flopped into my non-made bed complete with wrinkled sheets and haphazard blankets that had had no attention, professional or otherwise, for nearly a week. I stuffed my face into the pillow and said a brief thanks to the universe for the simple fact of having had a little thing called Time and having had enough of that pass so that I was no longer on a plane or in a car unsuccessfully trying to sleep upright somewhere between here and there. And this post just came in to my head, and it was writing itself, and it was good. And I knew I should have gotten up and written it down, but I was so bone-wearily, brain-deadingly exhausted that there wasn’t even time to think about grabbing a pen because zzzz.

But it paid me back, this post, because when the dog walked on me at 2 am, an event which usually results in me rolling over and going back to sleep, the post was still there. HI. You awake yet?? Cause, still here! Hi.

You might be afraid of everything else, it said, but you can’t be afraid of me. I’m right here, and I’ve been waiting for you for a while. it’s ok. We’re cool. You do need to get this out, though. Your outlet. Let me show it to you.

***************************
I don’t put a lot of deeply personal posts up here. I’ve always made excuses for that. Privacy. Stories always involve other people, and I don’t ever want to step on someone’s toes. Don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to hurt anybody, I reasoned.

Revelation: That “anybody” I was sparing was, of course, me.

If I say things, they become real. If I put things up on this page, they happened. It’s far easier to hide everything, because then after a month or six months or six years I can pretend it was all a fiction. Haha! Lalala! Remember that awful (or wonderful or awkward or emotional) thing or horrible (or amazing or growth) moment? Yeah, me neither! Whee! Oblivion is fun!

Except it isn’t. It’s just oblivion. Then you wake up and years have gone by and you are still pretending not to deal with the same issues you were pretending not to deal with back then. How’s that working out, pray tell?

**************************

What am I afraid of, writing here? That people will read it? Get to know me? CARE? Say it ain’t so. I’ve spent ages pushing everyone away, because - look, I’m admitting it, big step for me here, people - I figured if you knew me, really knew me, you’d ditch me anyway. Inherently unlikeable, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, despite friends who bewilderingly keep coming back despite all of my expectations. I always wonder if people have me confused with someone else. True story. Isn’t it high time to clue in?

I need to stop being afraid. I need to start taking risks. I don’t mean big risks. For some reason, those I have no trouble making. (See: Moved to the other side of the planet. Twice.) I mean little risks, the risks most people take every day by just putting themselves out there in the world to be accepted or rejected, liked or disliked, but at least, at the very least, honest.

Put it out there, woman. I can’t say “what will it hurt?” because I don’t know. That’s what I have to find out. So here I am, the dogs on my pyjamas softly glowing by the light of the iPad. Feeling the fear, but hitting publish anyway.