My Biggest Fear
Still dealing with expectations…
I feel like I’m sitting on a chair looking into a mirror. The person on the other side of this mirror is another person, and he is in constant judgement. This person has been in judgement since I’ve been old enough to have conscious memories.
I’m still trying to figure out whether or not this reflection is on my team. When I was a teenager, he ridiculed me. He constantly reminded me of my failures. He compared me to people I loved and admired. He pit me against my peers and made me feel I had to compete.
But today, I almost feel like this person is my friend. This image staring back at me, urging me to dig deeper, to push harder, to continue motivating myself and to find motivation in others around me, in the world around me, is actually on my side.
The judgement doesn’t feel as harsh. I take that as a sign I must be making progress. His comparisons are no longer to those I admire, instead he only makes reference to myself. He insists I have everything within me, but that I still need to seek validation from the masses; the people.
The fear is still there. The fear that I’m not being heard. The fear that no one is listening. Even writing those words gives me pause and fills my gut with the anxiety of a musician or actor entering stage left to not a soul in the audience.
Can you imagine? If you know me, the real me, you know I write to be heard. I write to tell stories that connect emotionally to readers. I want readers to be moved in some way when they read my first novella or anything penned under my name. And I want this movement to be extreme; love or hate, indifference is failure.
My reflection encourages me. He tells me that this is the right path. He shows me my progress and says he’s responsible.
“What would you be without me pushing you?”
I’m not sure what to believe. The ecstasy that is my life right now, the love I feel for my family and friends, the passion I feel for my writing is what makes me happy. With the latter, it is the process that incites this joy. Finding the right pairing of words, the right transitions through sentences, editing, editing, and editing my work till I feel like it’s something I’m proud of, are all parts of what contributes to this feeling.
As does the validation.
So my fear persists. The judgement persists. My writing continues.
