I never know where to start…
Or…sometimes I do. Deep down I think that it’s less “not knowing” and more “not having the confidence to do so”.
Most days I channel my anxiety into a laser sharp point. I bull-headedly charge forward into whatever project I’ve chosen (or has been chosen for me) and I fool everyone around me into thinking that I carry this air of confidence about my work. I become the go-to. At the office, I can fix any problem. I flash a smile and a wink…I throw in some light ribbing for good measure, to assert that yes, I’m no bullshitter…but inside I’m screaming because really…I’m a fraud.
Realistically, I stopped writing years ago even though I never removed the title of “Writer” from any of my profiles. The pressure that I felt to live up to all of the articles and stories around me became overwhelming. My sentences felt forced and juvenile. My story ideas were felt up…my poetry was a boring copy of someone else’s emotions. How the fuck was this something that I wanted to do? How did I fool my professors, friends, and colleagues for so long? Even now, my fingers don’t want to do this. I’m fighting not to delete every word I type. I guess this first entry is an exercise in being uncomfortable, a challenge that I took up in 2016 and hope to carry into the new year. I lost 80 pounds. I went ziplining. I took a pole dancing class. I had multiple threesomes. I ran my first 5k. I directed my first play. I directed my first movie. I proposed to my fiance. I began voice acting…but writing…
Writing???
No.
Nuh uh.
No sir.
I don’t do that anymore.
Yet…
Here we are…
For the past few months, I’ve been drowning in ideas and things to say and I’m so fucking rusty and it pains me to start over because I want to be perfect right out of the gate and the anxiety clouds my mind in a way that comically reminds me of that terrible remake of The Wicker Man where Nicholas Cage has his head locked in a cage and they fill the cage with bees.
Can you imagine?
The anxiety is loud and buzzing and distracting and telling you that you’re wrong wrong wrong and your rational mind is LAUGHING at you. Laughing at this image that you’ve conjured.
NOT THE BEES! NOT THE BEES!
So what do you do?
Get uncomfortable, I guess.
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