It’s not hard to be destined for greatness. When you come from the land that gave you The Sopranos, Frank Sinatra, and Snookie, New Jersey seems like the perfect backdrop to be someone. Growing up, I was weirdly good at gymnastics. It wasn’t because I was particularly strong or graceful. It was just because I had no fear. Not that I was brave, but that I genuinely didn’t understand the concept of pain or getting injured. My mom often complains that I took years off her life when she came to pick me up and I was hanging from the monkey bars fifteen feet off the ground, clutching onto the bar with my legs and the brazen fearlessness that only an eight-year-old girl can have. I was daring and bold. Then suddenly, I grew up and I was scared of everything.
These days, I hate high surfaces and my eyes start stinging with tears threatening to fall the second I’m standing on a shaky surface. When I was 7, I thought that everything I said should be held in the same regard as a preacher giving a sermon. At 19, I have to force myself to read my articles and not immediately critique every other sentence.
I was talking to my mother about writing a few weeks ago. I feel like every time I talk to my mother, I am 13 and complaining (I think it’s because when you’re young, your mother’s words are gospel, and when you get older, you need them to be). She is an author and I am a pessimist—at least, for the entirety of this conversation. “I do not understand how people do it. It’s diabolical.”
She’s telling me about this Masterclass™ she’s listening to, by Shonda Rhimes, about show-running, and I am whining about the fact that I want to write for shows and movies but the thought of giving my work out to actors and producers makes me nauseous. We’ve had this same conversation multiple times.
I hate seeing people read my writing. I would prefer to be stabbed a million times than to give someone a piece of my heart and say, “Here, it’s up to you what you want to do with it.” Absolutely not. If I ever have to show someone my writing, I always ask if I can read it out loud. I know what parts to pause at, and what parts to emphasize. I hate the idea of turning it over to someone else and telling them that they can interpret this however they want, without me hovering over their shoulder, trying to preface every paragraph. I don’t get how writers do it. Give themselves up over and over again, and offer themselves up for criticism. It’s insanity, self-flagellation. Hence, the use of the word “diabolical.”
I struggle with vulnerability. The first time I went to a party and opened up to my roommates, I went home for the weekend because I couldn’t look them in the eye. The thing I am the most embarrassed about is my writing. I can’t separate myself from my words. It’s too honest, too personal. For some reason, it’s easier to publish my work on the website, than send it to someone I love. I don’t like the idea of being known, but I feel myself craving it.
I think about this passage from Suzanna Rivecca a lot,
The San Francisco therapist kept telling me I shouldn’t be terrified of creative experimentation.
“I don’t know what’s going to come out of me,” I told her. “It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way.”
“Why?” she said.
“To make up for it,” I said. “To make up for the fact that it’s me.”
Every time I send someone my writing, it feels like I’m waving a banner saying, “Please! Please! This is who I am! Behind the depth of all my jokes! I’m a mess, a mess, a mess. Can you love this?” Writing these articles is only feasible when I pretend I’m writing this to a void, but I have to. Frankly, if I ever want to be someone someday, I have to give myself the possibility of being known. Gross.
Writing is vulnerable and ugly and honest. It has to be, anyways, if it has a chance of being good. So I’ll keep writing. I don’t have a choice. I have far too much to say.
I was braver as a kid, but isn’t everybody? One year from being in my 20s, I am trying to relearn everything 8 year old me already knew.