Just picture me staring blankly at my computer screen for hours upon hours, recovering from a week's worth of what I'd like to call third-degree writer's block. With the cursor taunting me as it blinks and all of my ideas falling short of what I consider "good enough content," I'm reminded of what I felt like trying to write papers in high school.
However, for this blog post, I am putting to use a nice writing tip I recently learned, a tip that's good specifically for moments like these.
What that tip is, all you writers ask?
When you don't feel like writing, write what you feel.
And that, my friends, is what this blog post is going to be about. My feelings. YAY! (Or, yikes?)
And, how I'm feeling today?
Confident, and at the very same time, anxious.
In fact, this whole month of August has consisted of me feeling mighty in my faith one week and shaky and uncertain in another, the perfect combination to make me feel like I'm losing my mind.
But, after deep consideration about why I may be feeling this way, considering the fact that both emotions have overwhelmed me deeply, I realized that this entire summer, I have been doing something I've wanted to do for the past two years:
Be myself.
After years of scrambling—trying to hide my insecurities and the not-so-fabulous parts of my life—this summer I let myself be totally vulnerable and bare before every person I tried to hide from. And, the feeling is, quite frankly, uncomfortable—hence this month's battle of feeling both confident and nervous.
It's because I peeled back all of the layers of my person, going past the exterior and down deep into my heart, the place I was always careful and hesitant to spill too much on the website. But, in this year's series of the summer vlogs, I did more than that, and it both freed and terrified me.
Despite it all, however, I am counting this summer as one for the books. It was one of the first times I absolutely humiliated who I was the last two years, someone who would try and hide the truth, and exposed the very thing I would run and hide from—the real me. I'm talking about the me in my lonely nights, my weakest moments—the me that hadn't felt like me in a really long time. I came out of hiding, and I put her on camera, denying my previous routine of covering up what my struggle had been.
It made me think about why being myself was so hard in the first place. I was almost forced to retrace my steps and see how I ended up so nervous about being real. I was surprised to find myself feeling nostalgic. In other words, I had been playing pretend as a kid.
From being a Barbie girl to a princess to whomever I wanted to be that day, playing pretend was my absolute favorite thing to do. And, what this summer has helped me realize is that I didn't just grow to love playing pretend. I grew into it too—only that it wasn't so innocent anymore. I was trapped into thinking that pretending to be anyone else was better.
But, even though the thought of being myself out loud—the believer I am with the thorn in my flesh—is a bit terrifying, by the grace of God, I am willing to be her and be her well. One thing I do know about her is that she has a heart for people. She cries thinking about the girls who walk around feeling miserable, the boys who feel like they're never heard. She hurts for the hurting. She wants to be there for the lonely. But, the only way she can do this is to solely be herself.
And so that, readers, I will do.
With my chest out and hands shaking, I will do the thing I've neglected to do for too long. There will be no more hiding from me. No more filtering. I am ready to be totally me, absolutely honest and vulnerable, and am committed to make a space where you can be vulnerable too.