Have you ever done something so trivial to other people, and yet so scary to yourself that it set your heart racing?  You sit there, in your chair, staring at the monitor screen of a computer, the options splayed before you, barely more than a click away.  A computer mouse click you have made millions of times before, but suddenly seems impossible.  A daunting task that makes you want to scream and run away in terror.

I look at “blogging” almost like that.  I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember.  Even when I took those dreams and shoved them aside like they were nothing more than garbage, I wanted to write.  Even when my ex-boyfriend convinced me every little piece of work, I wrote down was nothing more than crap, I wanted to write.  Even when I hated myself and had nothing I knew how to productively say, I wanted to write.

Even with that desire burning deeply inside of me, the self-doubt and anxiety held me back to the point I could force myself to dabble in it.  Could force myself to take old poems that I dusted off and reread and post them publicly.  But those poems did not matter anymore.  They were a representation of my sixteen-year-old self.  I would get a few likes, a follow here and there, and this feeling of pride that burned deeply inside of me.   What did I do with that feeling of pride you ask?  I beat the crap out of it until it no longer existed and told myself it was nothing more than a commitment issue that prevented me from devoting more time.

But that was not it.  Let me be clear, I do have commitment issues, and I am terrible at maintaining anything and updating anything weekly, monthly, daily.  The thought of having to do that terrifies me, but that is something I can work through.

No, the bigger fear, is the terror that the work I have loved and given life too is the garbage I think it to be.  The work I have devoted my emotion too, the ink stained paper that has helped me process emotions and been a comfort to me, will make other people feel nothing but hatred.  And how do you conquer that fear?

Apparently, you conquer that fear with a hopeful and slightly tentative desire to commit and hope you can stick to it.  You take the leap, and shove yourself over the cliff, waving a friendly goodbye and hope everything goes ok.

So here is the first post dedicated to going ok.

I end this with a simple question, what is your big fear that you have to force yourself to overcome, baby step by baby step?