Hey! I'm Not Afraid Anymore!

It's July! We made it to July! 

Maybe you're like, whoa, Suzy, none of us thought we weren't going to make it to July; did you think we weren't going to make it to July?

Well I don't know. Kind of? It's been one of those years, and you can't tell me it hasn't been. I had a dream the other night where I looked up into the sky and saw a glowing ball of fire headed straight for earth and I knew we were going to die, and in the dream I just sighed as though I were a little disappointed and calmly said to Barclay, "I'm not even surprised, with the way this year has been." Like 2020 was my disappointing teenaged child who had, yet again, failed me in some major but not unusual way.

And then we just stood there with our arms around each other and stared into the huge night sky as the ball of fire grew bigger and bigger...

So my subconscious is, like, over it, right? My subconscious is like, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AND I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO BE SURPRISED JUST TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, 2020.

But look at us! July!

Okay! 

So now that I've jinxed us good, on to the blog post:

I'd like to revisit a post I wrote in February—this one: 2020 A New Year's Resolution. In that post I wrote  about my resolution for this year, which was, in a nutshell, to be brave, and to stop telling myself and others that I was not brave, especially in regards to things like interviews and podcasts and stuff like that. Public speaking. 

This was a pretty lofty goal for me—after all, I wasn't just nervous about doing interviews. I was pretty much panic-stricken. I'd get physically ill about a week before an interview. It was all I'd think about. I'd shake through the whole thing. I hated, hated, hated doing them. And then after I did them, I'd feel sick about having done them, and I'd feel almost more nervous in retrospect than I had before or during the actual interview—nervous to the point where I wouldn't tell anyone that I'd even done an interview (like, not even Barclay, you guys) because I couldn't stand the thought of a single other person on the planet listening to these things. 

And you might be thinking, okay, so just don't do interviews. Just say no to people—and this is also something I've been working on, the just saying no when I don't feel up to something. (That's been going well, actually! I've been very picky about what I've said yes to this summer, and I think that's been healthy and good and nice.) 

But I also think—have always thought—it's healthy to do things that are hard for you. AND, I think it's important to figure out why the things that are hard for you...are hard for you. Especially when it comes to fear. Like, why am I deathly afraid of talking in front of people? Talking in front of people isn't dangerous, so why are my actual survival instincts kicking in over it?

Besides. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this wasn't just something that affected me when I was doing interviews or book club talks—which makes sense, because fear is rarely localized. It rarely pops up for no reason in one area of your life and then just stays where it is, affecting nothing and being affected by nothing. I've noticed this fear popping up in all kinds of weird places. Self-consciousness in conversations with friends. Having a hard time meeting new people. Second guessing EVERYTHING. Etcetera, etcetera. Blah blah blah. I felt like this weird fear had some serious vine-like potential to just grow all over my life and wrap itself around everything. So my motivation for getting rid of it isn't some vain I WANT TO BE A PODCAST SUPERSTAR AND TALK A BUNCH IN PUBLIC thing, it's more that I want to be a person who is comfortable in my skin and with my voice coming out of my face and with the thoughts in my head. I guess I just noticed that this is a fear with a trajectory, and I would like to point that thing in the right direction. You know?

So.

I don't know where this specific fear came from—like I said in that other blog post, I haven't always been this afraid of being seen and heard—and I'm not sure exactly what to do to get its roots out of me, but I'm a big believer in small changes. So at the beginning of this year, I started with the very smallest thing: I stopped saying (out loud to other people AND in the quiet of my own brain) that I was afraid of public speaking. I mean, sometimes I slipped, but most of the time I caught myself. And—wonder of wonders—it's...working? I think? Slowly but surely. 

(I should add that this isn't me telling all anxious people that if you stop saying you're anxious you'll stop being anxious; that would be silly and impossible. This is just me saying: Hey. Don't tell yourself you're bad at stuff because YOU WILL BELIEVE YOURSELF.)

Anyway. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. 

(Wait, why do they say that? I'll check. OH. Okay. Here's a thing I've [very] recently learned: The original version is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." So. Interesting.)

So the proof of the pudding is in the eating: I did a podcast interview last Thursday and we talked about this a little bit, about this resolution and how it seems to be working, which is kind of a full-circle moment, to talk about not being afraid to do podcasts on a podcast. And I, who was not only not feeling ill, but even quite enjoying myself, had one of those rare moments where you can actually see and measure personal progress in a very tangible way. It! Felt! Great!

But also, the interview itself was very fun. We talked about Jimmy Eat World and Rush and Taylor Swift and Stars and Garth Brooks and Olafur Arnalds and Rachmaninoff. We talked about publishing and blogging and lasagne and Scotland. We also talked about reviews and I jinxed myself there too by saying people were leaving nice reviews for Sorry I Missed You. (I woke up this morning to many bad reviews, including one saying I was conceited for classifying my book as "book club fiction" and including book club questions in the back because what book club in their right mind is going to waste their time with the drivel I've written?—which is funny because Lake Union is a book club fiction imprint and I am not responsible for that classification AT ALL. Oh well. People be people.)

I will leave it here, for anyone to listen to who wants to, because I'm not afraid of you. (Please do picture adorable little Kevin McCallister marching out of his big white house yelling, "Hey! I'm not afraid anymore!")