Willing To Be Seen

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

The scariest thing for me to do would be to put my writing out in the world, past the safety and anonymity of Word Press.

Most of my pieces read like journal entries, they kind of are journal entries. What else do you call putting your interior landscape into words? But as I say in But Why – “Journaling is still internalization. It’s private. It keeps the story IN me, or at least nearby, never seen by or shared with anyone else. Writing something with the intention of putting it out into the world, in some fashion, is the TELLING of my story. By telling a story, you put it outside of yourself where it can do less harm.” So now here I am, with my internal landscape, on display like an Ansel Adams poster, taped to the wall.

So I guess the real fear is being seen in my entirety. What if the PTO moms knew the depths of my insecurity and where it came from? What if my sister in-law read something I’ve written and thought it was trash? What if my husband did and he was embarrassed of how much of myself I put on display? What if people think I’m crazy for sharing such personal details of my life? What if my writing is insipid and self indulgent and interesting only to me? What if it IS just a bunch of edited journal entries?

What if? What if it doesn’t fucking matter because we only have one precious life and the only way to make it meaningful is by connecting with others and the only way you can truly connect with others is if you are willing to be seen.

Sounds good, in theory. But I won’t be posting my blog link on social media any time soon.

So what would it take to get me to tell my story to the masses? It will take an internal validation that it is good enough. That *I* am good enough and that it’s safe to be seen.