I must have read What Was I Scared Of? a thousand times over the years as one after another of my kids passed in and then out of that stage when they wanted to hear the same book again and again. When it was Dr. Seuss, I didn’t mind so much, in part because of his charming pentameter (or is it tetrameter?) and in part because they taught my children about things like pride (The Zax) and prejudice (The Sneetches) without preaching.
What Was I Scared Of? is about fear. Crippling, paralyzing, irrational terror. In this case, the dread of the protagonist (a creature of uncertain genus and species) for a pair of spooky, empty pale green pants with nobody inside.
My pale green pants are other people’s judgments. I tell myself they don’t matter, that I shouldn’t care. I know that. You know that. Everybody knows that. How not to give a fuck has become its own genre on the internet (see here, here, here, here, and here). I know that, and yet it’s why I’ve stopped blogging.
When I started this blog I was a stay at home mom to three little girls and pregnant with a fourth. My youngest is now seven, and those exhausting, nerve-wracking years of parenting very young children are behind me.
So are my years as a SAHM. I went to work in 2011, after I got divorced. That’s why this blog has been dying a slow, lingering death. Partly it was that writing seemed safer when I was at home, since out in the professional world, people judge and gossip and you can’t hide from it as easily. But mostly it was because I got divorced. I know, half of America gets divorced. But I wasn’t supposed to be in that half. Irrational or not, I felt guilty and ashamed, and it was easier just to go dark on the blog for a while.
“Write like your parents are dead,” Anne Lamott urged in Bird by Bird, one of my favorite books on writing. Why can’t I? My fingers freeze, hovering over the keyboard.
Fear. It’s the root of everything that keeps us in pain. Resentment, anger, envy, insecurity, perfectionism, materialism, avarice, hunger for approval – they all derive ultimately from fear. And the only way you get past fear is by pushing past it, forcing yourself to get out of your comfort zone and face it.
That is, ultimately, the purpose of this post – forcing me to face my fear of writing without self-censorship, to turn the pale green pants of other people’s judgments from a frightening specter into just another part of everyday life.
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I get where you are coming from, but keep on keep’ on, my friend! Fear sucks. I’m paralyzed by it regularly myself. However, you have a wonderful “voice”, and it must be heard! ????
Fear is so ugly, but you write about it beautifully.
I’ve always loved your writing Brigette. Take the leap. Read some Brene Brown. My fave is “Daring Greatly.”
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
Thanks, Melissa. I’ve read Daring Greatly, and her other books. She’s terrific. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. Hope you and your family are doing well.
So happy to be reading your writing again. You have a true gift for it, and you show bravery and strength in your writing. Miss you my friend!
Hey, Shannon! I was just thinking about you the other day and have been meaning to email or text. Thank you for reading and commenting — and for being so awesome about keeping in touch after you moved away! So many people don’t do that, and you are so good about it. Thanks to all who commented. Not sure who Chris and Kate are — Kate in Seattle? Kate in Santa Fe? I don’t recognize the email. Anyway, thanks for commenting.