Day 17: The fear of honesty
About six months ago, I wrote an article on my blog titled 'I'm letting my friends go (and I'm okay with that)'. At the time, it was one of the most honest pieces of writing I had on my site. And I was very afraid about publishing it.
I have a lot of fear for some of the things I write on my blog. It's not like other things, like work or school, where you can hide behind a big organisation that will protect you. My blog is very much about me and what happens in my life. And it's also read by people in my own life. If you know me and parts of my real life well enough, it can be really easy to figure out which people I could be covertly writing about, even when I don't mention their name.
That piece in particular sat in my drafts for over 2 weeks, even though I had written it all down in one day. For days after, I read it and reread it over and over again, debating internally with myself if it was okay. I gave it to my boyfriend to read through as an impartial judge. I had so many close calls to hit delete and wipe it all. I worried whether or not people would message me or talk to me in real life, angry about the words I had put on my page and if I was accusing them of being bad friends.
But there's a reason I decided to publish it. The subject of friends at the time was being talked about with so many friend groups I knew of, and a thought that consumed my head at the time, I just wanted to use my writing to finally have peace to it all. In a number of ways, my blog is very selfish. It's the same way I guess that Adele and Taylor Swift use their own relationships to write songs - except in their case they use it to make millions of dollars. My writing is more cheap therapy for myself.
I posted my story, and published it to my blog's Facebook. And I sat there, worried if I had made a mistake and opened up a can of destruction in my own life. But quite frankly I was believing it was just going to be ignored.
However, I was actually surprised that one, people did read it, and two, the response was really positive. There wasn't a story I had so many people message me about, telling me how much they really like what I wrote. They agreed, it made them think, and it made them want to invest into the friendships they cared about.
I think about this now every time I write. I want to write with an honest heart that wants to tell a story. I'm thankful that I am fearful about what I write about. The fear of publishing honest stories is just a reminder that I am writing with my honesty in my heart.
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For the month of January 2016, I'm writing 31 personal stories about things in my life I'm thankful for. See all my posts during my month of thankfulness here.
