Man, I got scared after posting that last post. Like, for real kind of nauseous scared. Which is so funny, because it’s such an innocuous little post. It’s something I really wanted to share—something I’m always trying to share, the feeling of being inside my stories, loving them, discovering things.

I thought, “I should have posted that to Patreon after all.” Not because I really wanted to monetize it, but because there’s no one there, and so it feels safer. Private, maybe? A little $5 wall to keep the whole internet out. As if there are really that many people who read my little blog!

But I think, after stepping back for a moment, that fear is critical voice saying a version of, “Who do you think you are?” Barbara Sher talks about that, about the nasty voice in the back of our heads, parroting the times people have said that to us, in those words and other words, starting from when we were children.

Who do you think you are?

Be humble.

Why do you think anyone cares?

And that’s maybe the fear, isn’t it? It’s not really that no one cares. It’s that maybe other people will judge me for caring. It says things in tones of, Oh, so you think your work is good? You think it’s serious? You think it deserves to be thought about this carefully, to be spoken about lovingly? You think you’re that serious?

And… I don’t know. Maybe?

But it’s the wrong questions going in the wrong direction, mostly made up of trauma and fear. The right direction is, I think, I love these things. I love my stories; I think they’re good. I hope other people think they’re good, too, but that’s… something else. Outside of this.

I want to be allowed to love things. If I don’t love the things I make, then who will? I want to be able to love them out loud, unapologetically. I want to talk about them in the ways I want to talk about them, and I want that to be okay.

I am reminded of something I wrote a very long time ago now.

I want to love my lover, trust my neighbor, and leave my door unlocked some nights