From a previous passenger

Sometimes I notice myself getting stuck in these reoccurring thought loops. Whether they are negative or positive ones, although as of late I must say it’s been an abundance of negative ones.

I used to think I couldn’t do a lot of things. For a long time my biggest fear was escalators, of course I was a child, but perspective really is everything. I would always urge my parents to choose the stairs, or for us to take an elevator over what seemed to be a monstrous machine that would surely snag my shoelaces with its teeth and ingest me whole. When I was 16, I started working at a bookstore with a second floor inside of it. If only my younger self would have known how one day I would fly up and down the escalators so easily and so unbothered.

I have always been an anxious person. From childhood to adulthood there have been many obstacles in my path that at one time I had so easily convinced myself that I was incapable of overcoming. I had a journal in college where a lot of my entries were revolving around the guilt I felt for still not having my license yet. Countless lines of how I was afraid I would never get my drivers license, or the freedom that came with it. And when I got it you would think all my fear about driving would cease, and that I would feel so relieved but it didn't- instead it morphed. What was once the fear that I couldn’t drive became the fear of how far I could drive. I would only drive to work and back, too afraid to go anywhere else. Then I was afraid of driving into the city. Driving over bridges. Driving out of state. My point is all of these various fears I created, I have conquered all of them, and instead of appreciating what I can do, I instead still feel guilty and fearful of what I still cannot do. What’s even worse, I know I'm not the only one.

When it comes to writing I have always felt inadequate regardless of the praise and achievements I have received over the years. You could ask my mom from as early as six I was writing as best as a six year old could little stories on scraps of papers. In second grade we had to keep a journal and instead of writing about my days I would write about “Super dogs”, they were hounds that wore capes and fought the bad guys. My second grade teacher started reading my entries and she let me read my stories to the class. In 6th grade I was sharing my poetry to other classes, and in 8th to 12th grade I was reading my poetry in front of my entire school. Finally, after college I started sharing poetry online on my personal Instagram, and that’s where thing’s really took off for me.

Whenever anyone would admire me for my writing no matter how kind or how genuine they may have seemed I have always convinced myself that they were just being nice. I have writer friends who are in college for writing and although I have always daydreamed of doing the same I always doubt myself, and more so my abilities. I am always selling myself short, and talking myself out of what I want most because I let my fear take the driver's seat. I let my fear tell me where it wants to go and it turns out it never wants to go anywhere. It just wants me to sit there in the backseat thinking about all the places I could have been if only I could drive. And now here I am leaping to the front, opening up the door, grabbing the wheel and kicking it out.

What I'm trying to say is I made this blog to prove to myself that I deserve to be proud of what I create and I owe it to myself to take myself seriously. I need to allow myself to accept praise as much as I have always been accepting criticism. I’m making this blog because I know somewhere inside of me is aware of how much potential I have, but what good is potential if you never do anything with it? I don’t know how often I'll be posting or what I will share or overshare but I plan to write to fill the void that working two jobs has created inside of me. I say void, but it is also a craving, a desire for more than this. So here I go, and really I appreciate any of you reading this right now. Let’s see where fear couldn’t take me, and where bravery surely will.