The Nature of My Insecurity

• 

When I read this, my anxiety rises. My head knows it is beautiful and I breathe, knowing it should feel good to revisit. Instead, I see a list of characteristics and rate my performance on each in the back of my mind, not comparing myself to others but judging against an ideal.

The first hit is the career I forfeited to stay home with my children, who are now fine young men, and I wouldn’t change the decision. Still, it’s the most glaring shortcoming, according to this. The other serious infraction is those dark imaginings that run wild in my hours alone.

A perfect example of how my insecurities play out is as follows:

When I started this blog, I had zero experience. I didn’t know if even one person would be interested, with the exception of the folks closest to me. I was tickled when someone I didn’t know liked a post or actually chose to follow! My husband and I celebrated when I had 50 followers, and I’m pretty sure I used number 75 as an excuse to splurge on a good dinner.

At some point, I hit my stride and was writing frequently. The words were flowing and I posted nearly every day, much the way I feel currently. And then, I lost a follower. I went from 96 to 95. Huh. My brain starts in right away, setting things straight, looking at the situation calmly, providing obvious rationale. I couldn’t help it though; I felt like I’d disappointed someone.

My brain went from chief defender to prosecuting attorney very quickly, listing a myriad of flaws that could have been enough to drive anyone away. What was I doing differently? Think, think, think. Well, the most easily identifiable change was the increased pace of posting. I decided that must be it. Probably a friend from when I initiated my blog who was receiving email notifications but not really interested. After deciding this was the cause, I deliberately slowed putting my writing up, which resulted in quite a few musings as drafts. This occurred months ago, and I continue to operate under this constraint, this response to one person discontinuing my blog. I have no idea who it even was because I don’t know how to look that up. Saying this all out loud, it sounds absurd.

Recently, the writing juices are flowing. I have several drafts, some of which will never see the light of day, but a few I’d like to publish. I found myself considering I’d posted two days in a row, so I better slow it down, And then the voice inside me said, in a very firm tone, “Screw that. This is your blog. You get to decide. You can post every five minutes, should you so choose,” and I said, “Yeah!”