Given I am feeling particularly vulnerable this morning, I thought I should try to write about this terrible feeling lurking in my belly, shaking my arms, and causing me to search for the nearest bag to throw over my head.
Writing is usually where I feel its presence most intimately. Writing has been my lifeblood, but sharing it also turns my blood cold. It could be a piece of fiction and it still would feel as if I am reading my diary to a room full of strangers.
I went to a community college for a year and a half before I transferred to a four year school. While there, I joined various clubs, including the student newspaper, and a new creative writing/poetry publication developed by some friends I had met in acting classes. (of course)
The newspaper was fine. It gave me an opportunity to write, but I was always begging for the opinion pieces or human interest stories. Writing fact as succinctly as possible, without tying it to the deeper meaning of life and adding frills has been a difficult skill for me to learn. Something I am still working on.
There was absolutely no joy for me in writing about the community college’s third rate baseball team. There was also no risk. The worst thing that could happen would be a potential misspelling or typo, and hopefully an editor would catch it. If they didn’t, only about 3% of the population probably read it and of that, fewer than 1% likely made their way to my article.
I felt pretty confident no-one would read what I wrote, and if they did, what could they criticize? The college’s new student police force I wrote about? As long as it wasn’t me, personally, I was fine with that.
The poetry group almost ruined me from sharing my writing ever again. I should fix that statement: my response to their reaction to what I wrote, almost kept me from writing ever again.
As part of the editing team, I sat around a table of about a dozen other students (it was probably less, but my memory is drawing up a large number of bodies). We had a pile of poems and short stories to read through, as we had requested student submissions.
I don’t remember a rubric of any kind – just the critical statements of newly graduated high schoolers pretending to have been instructed on the makings of good poetry from Lord Tennyson or something. We were so pretentious. It was disgusting.
I had submitted two poems anonymously. One was about the passing of a family friend from breast cancer. It was dark. I questioned God. It was something a group of college students ate up. It made it into the publication – no problem.
Next came the “worst piece of garbage ever written.” They were not wrong in saying this. It was so sweet, you could smell it coming down the hallway, but instead of making you want cake, it made you want to vomit. After hearing what they said, I almost did.
I had a friend in the group with whom I had shared which poems were mine. This was a huge mistake. Because, not only did I have to suffer the humiliation of what the group really thought about what I had written, but I had to endure him trying to defend the piece of shit I wrote. It was so incredibly bad.
The poem was about my newfound romance set to the backdrop of the restaurant I wrote it in: IHOP.
It’s true. I wrote a love poem and it involved the International House of Pancakes. I wish I could find it. It may have even had a line, like, IHOP to you or your heart or something about pancakes, I don’t know.
It was happy poetry: the worst kind. The criticism came hard and fast, and I froze. The same rock I feel all the time now, as I share my writing publicly, lodged itself in my gut. My heart was probably visible in my neck, and I was searching for a hiding place.
There were comments like “I don’t think I can ever eat at IHOP again”. Seriously – they thought it was bad enough to never set foot in the restaurant it was titled after. I mean, I hate IHOP now, as an adult who knows what good food versus poured out of a carton food is, but I mean, bad enough to never eat at the diner you thought was cool ten minutes ago? That seemed a bit extreme.
I’m not sure what was worse: sitting there and listening to my heart get torn to shreds, or listening to my friend try to comfort me afterwards. I think I just shook my head with some sort of statement like “there’s no coming back from that – but thanks for the effort.”
Sharing your writing takes you to a new level of nakedness. We can hide our bodies in our clothes. We can hide our thoughts in our heads. We can hide our hearts in our chests. We can hide ourselves in our guts.
Writing pulls all the truth of who you are from your head, your chest, and your gut and it’s a display at the science fair for complete strangers to walk by and judge. Quite often, you find yourself with the dreaded, “honorable mention”. It’s the most god awful, terrible, wonderful thing. [Tweet This]
And sometimes, what we have to say is just as terrible. It’s awkward or jumbled or so innocently sweet, it’s impossible to read without laughing. It’s human though. It’s us. It’s real. I’ve decided it’s worth the risk of being an idiot to get my human out there for the rest of you to know how ridiculous we all are. We’re not cool. We’re not seamless.
We’re rough and unedited. I hate to be the one to say it, but we’re all a bit of bad writing sometimes. [Tweet This]
Something in me wants to bring my laptop into IHOP and write a new poem, but I still have a hard time walking in that place without seeing the rolling eyes and hearing the laughter of the community college poetry critics.
When I began writing again, it was because I got sick. It’s why I no longer hate my disease. Sure, I had my weird blog on blogger where I would write a post once every few months, or I would scribble away in my journal anytime I was hurt and crying and had no-where else to go.
But my disease was the first thing that made writing necessary again.
I find it funny how a group full of insecure college students made me stop doing this thing I absolutely love and then a bladder disease made me start again. What an odd series of stupid events to be the alpha and omega of something so important to me.
My point in sharing all of this with you, is I wish I hadn’t waited for something as life altering as a chronic illness to force me back into my lifeblood. There was a solid span of twelve years when I wasn’t doing the very thing which brought me so much joy, all because I was afraid it was stupid, or I wasn’t any good, or “no-one would like it”.
If there is something which equally brings you joy and makes your heart beat an extra beat – or when you do it, you feel your shoulders and neck tingle and a lightness but simultaneous heaviness grabs at your chest, friend, just do it!
Don’t put it on the shelf because you’re not sure what the others will think. Do it because you love it. Also, do it, because IF you love it, I believe this is on purpose and it’s something you were created to do and to share and to be proud of.
SO IHOP on over to writing the book, or song, or sewing the dress or building the furniture. Let yourself fall back in love with it. Do it, and then don’t look back, and if a bunch of college students start mocking you, remember their laughter is just hiding how much more scared they are of what you think of them.
We’re all just a bunch of scared little babies, so do your thing and don’t let one humiliating moment stop you from doing something you love like I did. Please learn a lesson from my own insecurity and DO WHAT YOU LOVE. The world needs you to. You need you to.