At the end of this past August, my son stood high on a diving board in the middle of the West Texas sun. He studied the cool waters below for a few minutes before inching backward to the steps and climbing back down. He did this for nearly an hour while we cheered on each attempt. My husband, daughter, and I jumped in one by one as inspiration. See, we did it. You can, too. But, no matter what we said or did, we couldn’t compete with the fear that had taken hold.
I get it - it was scary up there. When I stood on the edge, looking down, it seemed twice as high as it looked from the ground. The drop down was so long that I felt like a cartoon character suspended in the air. But when my body ripped through the crisp water, I was flooded with exhilaration. I wanted my son to know that feeling, not only the fear. He wanted it, too. I could practically hear his inner voice trying to psyche himself up, but the other voice, the cynical resister, was too strong. This I understood. I am very familiar with that voice.
It was about a year ago when I decided to create this Substack. As soon as I created the publication, a “coming soon” entry was automatically posted. I did not know this happens when you create a Substack, but it does. And I panicked.
I actually ducked down from my computer, as if people on Substack could see me, before slamming it shut with what can only be described as the strength of crippling self-doubt. Substack was trying to push me off the diving board, and I chose to climb back down.
What is Substack anyway? I asked myself. A blog? A newsletter? (And isn’t the newsletter just a rebranding of the blog?) Is it a place for free, unbridled writing (as I had once read)? Feigned ignorance is one of my top 3 procrastination tools because it sends me down a rabbit hole of answer-seeking. I read other people’s stacks to help answer the question, only to learn that Substack is a place for real writers with lots of experience. Clearly, I didn’t belong.
(Another of my top 3 procrastination tools is telling myself I’m not skilled enough, don’t know enough yet, and need more training/classes/research/etc., before I can do the thing I want to do.)
Resistance is like a warm blanket, and I am always the first one willing to climb under. I’m an ideas killer.
It’s not that I don’t create things; it’s that I rarely share them with anyone.
In college, I made a short film on black and white Super 8 and only showed it to one girl, someone I was friends with for the life equivalent of five minutes. I must have known how insignificant she was in my life; therefore, the stakes were low. A year or two later, I threw the film away when I was moving. I thought it was trash.
Right now, at least 100 essay drafts on my Google Drive have never seen the light of day, and I have about the same number of haiku poems living in the notes section on my phone. Other than the two I showed my husband (one of which was a birthday haiku for him), I've never shared them with others. I haven’t even told anyone else that I write them until now.
I could say that I am trying to protect myself from judgment and failure, but at the risk of sounding like some inspirational Instagram influencer, I know the only failure is not trying. I know this, yet that voice, the cynical resister, is SO LOUD.
This Substack, where the stakes are low (like my five-minute college friend), still feels scary. I am my son on the high dive. I climb up and then back down. I watch others do it with envy, and I try to quiet the inner critic. I want to write more and put it out in the world. I want to climb out from behind my private Google Drive and notes section on my phone, and I want to share all the things I find interesting with you, whoever you are. I want to jump into the water.
An hour into the high dive drama, my son eventually jumped off the board. Technically, he sat down on the edge of it and slid down into the water, but he did it. And then he spent the next 30 minutes repeating this over and over again with total exhilaration. He did it.
And so am I.
Sitting down and sliding in, here I go. My new substack, Tentatively Titled, is coming soon. (For real this time.)
It’s a bi-weekly (ish) newsletter about names, identity, and other aspects of being human. Maybe one of my haikus will make a cameo; who knows? It’s all tentative.