A part of myself that needs love hasn’t been loved. I do not love the achiever perfectionist part of myself, clinging to safety and stifling authenticity.
When I write, I write for fun, freedom, and life. Then, the idea of publication catapults me into the familiar squeezing achiever who tells me it must be just right, perfect before putting it out into the world. I begin to spiral–rework, rework, rework.
Can I love that part of myself?
I find it in my chest. A small, dark snake wrapped around a slick metal dowel. Squeezing tight. Protective and protecting.
Thank you for protecting me.
And yet, I’m annoyed. Your protection is stifling. It throws me off balance, squeezes my words, tries to force them into unfamiliar boxes. Your well-intentioned but misguided love smothers me.
How to love the over-achiever part of myself? The not-enough, needs-more-work part that imagines an editor reading over my shoulder as I type, summarily rejecting every word.
I’ve no question of myself as a writer. That’s not it. Stories course through my body as words flow onto the page. I can’t not write. I feel less an imposter than ever.
Except when I begin to rework. I break it all apart in in the hopes that maybe my words will eventually catch someone’s attention. My greatest fear: I bear my soul in a way inarticulable to anyone else. In reworking, I squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the life out of a piece until it’s unrecognizable to me but works for the imagined everyone else.
I feel the stakes on my shoulders. If the powers-that-be don’t understand, then my words, the beautiful light I’ve discovered, won’t reach the few who need them. How to reach those kindred souls, the ones who yearn for my words but have no path to find them? I write for them. I revise for them.
Except that I don’t. I revise for editors, those gatekeepers of the microphone who judge my worthiness to be on the stage. Do I go around them or appease them?
Maybe I try not to please but simply to show myself as I am. Can I do that? Can I love the part of myself that wants to appease and then gently set it aside so I can do the work of getting my completely ordinary, beautifully imperfect self onto the page?
To be seen is to be judged. To be perfect is to avoid judgment. Perfection equals invisibility.
That’s my old self talking, the one I’m trying to rewrite. I no longer want to be invisible. I want to fill this chasm with beautiful, unflinching uniqueness. I want to be free.
I reach my hand toward the snake, keeping my distance and letting it come to me.
“Don’t be afraid,” I tell it. “I’m here. What do you need?”
Safety. The word rises from the depths of my gut.
“I am safe,” I tell it.
The snake hovers its head away from the rod, testing me. I keep my hand steady. It finds its way up the inside of my forearm, stopping just before my elbow. Most of its body still clings tight to the rod. I remain still.
Eventually, the snake returns to the rod and continues to grip, though less fiercely than before. Progress.
Tomorrow, we’ll try again, another step on the long journey toward letting go.
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