I'm embarrassed (again)

or why I haven't written in three months

It's been a while since I last wrote. You could say it's because I had a busy summer doing odd jobs and vacationing with my family, or because I recently started working as a babysitter and part-time teacher at a Hebrew school in the city, or because I've been trying to build new friendships and haven't found time to write with my social calendar being so full. But the truth is that I've been embarrassed.

My life has changed so much since my last newsletter. In the last few months, I've met new people, had new experiences, visited new places, and gained new perspectives. In many ways, I feel like a completely different person. Like the bubble that surrounded me my whole life finally burst, and I've begun to see things differently. With each new experience, I prove to myself that I'm capable of doing hard work and making good decisions. And while this makes me more excited and curious about what I'll do next, the uncertainty and vulnerability of this process is so, so frightening.

At the risk of sounding like a baby, I really care about what other people think. I spend so much time rethinking all my interactions and analyzing people's faces and tone of voice to gauge how they might feel about me. The worst is when I share something personal and have to brace for the possible humiliation caused by someone else's response, or lack thereof. I'm even cringing as I write this, picturing everyone I know reading these words and forming thoughts and opinions that I'll never be privy to.

I don't know how anyone can do vulnerable things like write about their feelings, share their art, release music, post self-tapes, etc., and not be mortified. I see people with careers that I admire, with positions that require them to be sincere and open to the judgment of others, and I am baffled by the seeming nonchalance with which they carry themselves. It's like they've always known what they were good at and knew exactly what to do so others did too. I can't relate to that at all.

Yes, it’s true that writing has always come naturally to me. I find it easy to put what I'm thinking into words. Even when I was assigned research papers in school, I enjoyed making interesting stories out of would-be mundane topics. There is so much intention behind every word that even one adjective has the potential to change the meaning behind an entire body of work. One of my favorite books is How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. It's essentially a nerdy love letter to the act of writing, and I think about it at least once a week.

But despite my deep admiration for stories, I don't know if I have any worth telling. My life has been as privileged and challenging as anyone else's. My family has struggled with money but I've never gone to bed hungry. I've been on nice vacations but can't afford rent in New York City. I got a college education but have yet to be employed in my field. My life has been comprised of your run-of-the-mill problems and achievements. I don't have a traumatic past to write a best-selling novel turned award-winning movie about. I'm not creative enough to build a fictional world about dragons or wizards that will inspire Halloween costumes. And I don't see myself writing a romance novel that will be featured in the Barnes and Noble's YA section. All I have are thoughts and feelings, and they're usually scattered and fleeting, and I'm convinced that every time I put them to paper, their importance and intensity die.

But then I think about some of my favorite writing, like Dolly Alderton's Everything I Know About Love or Joni Mitchell's discography, and I think about why I love it so much. At their core, they're simple. There are no superfluous adjectives or complicated metaphors. They don't disguise the ugliness of human emotion with fake nonchalance. They take ownership of each word, trusting that a story will weave itself out of their honesty. That's the writing that I connect to the most. The kind that reflects the true feelings of its author, no matter how they will be perceived.

When I read Dolly's essay about the complexity of female friendship, it made me rethink all of my relationships and unknowingly kickstarted one of the most transformative periods of my life. Maybe that wasn't her intention when sharing bits of her personal life with the world, but it was the effect it had on me nonetheless. Something similar happens when I listen to "I Don't Know Where I Stand" or "Urge for Going". Joni forces you to meet her right where she is, no matter how manic or sad that place may be. It's comforting when someone you don't know tells you they feel the same way you do. It's like an invisible string reaching out, certifying your experience to the rest of the world. It asserts, "You are not the first to feel this, and you won't be the last."

What I'm trying to say is that those are my intentions with my writing. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel or think of better ways to say the things that the best poets and novelists of our time have already expressed. All I want is for my stories, as simple and ordinary as they may be, to make someone feel seen. I want to trust that my slight embarrassment and instinct to cringe serves a purpose and isn’t just some masochistic exercise. I want to be someone's Dolly and Joni. I want my words to be well received, or just received at all!

And I know I'm capable of this. I've had friends text me with compliments and generous feedback after a newsletter. But like in most cases, these types of things mean more when they come from people you don't know. A nice comment from a girl I've known since high school doesn't really hit the same as some random stranger who stumbled across my work. It's almost like the less someone knows me, the more their opinion means.

I think this is also why I've had a hard time believing in my writing. In my mind, I'm convinced that everyone I know is lying when they say something kind, and that their smiles are really just trying to mask their pity. Maybe it's projection, but it has effectively made me second-guess the quality of everything I do. Do people really like this or are they doing that thing people sometimes do when their unemployed friend is diving headfirst into yet another hobby and instead of holding an intervention they simply watch the whole thing crash and burn?

I wish I could say that writing this newsletter for over a year has given me enough practice with discomfort to be able to post things without a second thought, but every time I click "publish" I still feel the same uneasiness. I can only describe it as feeling not good enough and wildly pretentious at the same time. But I'm trying a different approach: instead of writing with the gnawing thought of how others will perceive me, I'm going to address each entry to myself. A public diary, if you will. So now you've been formally warned (or invited) to what will continue to be sometimes silly, often sad, and always embarrassing essays, but some that I hope you will relate to.

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