Fears

I'm actually amazed that it hasn't been as long since I last wrote. Not that this post is anything very important, instead, just thoughts I was having while sitting in my mostly quiet kitchen. It's 1pm, and my husband is still asleep, (he was up really late last night), my kids are gone, one with his dad and the other with my sister. It's been snowing all morning so I don't really want to go outside. So I sit here in my kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate and my stereo playing, (low so not to wake the husband).

I was thinking about the snow a bit ago, thinking that even if it wasn't snowing and was super warm, I'd still only feel comfortable going into my back yard. The neighborhood outside my front door almost feels alien to me. I mean the part from the door to the car isn't bad, and once I'm in the car I'm fine. But I've never been for a stroll around the neighborhood. What I can see is from my front room windows. Which now because of the weight of the snow in the branches of the evergreen tree across the street I can now see that they have a windmill in their backyard. I've never seen it before. It's actually spinning quite fast at the moment. It got me wondering what else I've never seen. The problem is that I don't feel at home here. In my house, yes. I feel very at home here, but the rest of the neighborhood, not so much. My neighbors so far are pretty nice, in fact Mr. Next Door Neighbor is snow blowing my sidewalks as I write this. I've never asked him to. He's just doing it to be helpful. They also brought me over cookies the other day, just to say hi. I've never had neighbors do that before.

My problem is that for the last few years, I've gained some weight and it's made me very self conscious about going out in public. I've afraid everyone is looking at me and thinking about how much I weigh. It's stopped me from doing things I used to really enjoy. Like going for walks and investigating my neighborhood. It's made me find solitary things to do instead. And I really hate that.

I read a blog post today that talked about fears. It was a really good post and a lot of the fears that were mentioned in it are the same ones I have, (though not the going out in public one, this was about writing.) I've never really mentioned that I want to write to anyone. My family knows and encourage me but I'm too scared to tell anyone else or really show them what I've written. I'm taking online classes for writing and even at that, I'm not progressing as much as I'd like too because I'm too scared to put myself out there to let anyone see my work, or I'm afraid that they will think I'm completely stupid. I have one assignment that I have been working on for a long time because it's an assignment that I have to give my opinion on what I read, and I don't want the teacher thinking I completely missed the point or that I'm never going to pass the class. The worst part is that my father in law taught both English and Spanish and he would be more than happy to help me, but I just don't dare ask him because I don't want his opinion of me to fall either. I'd rather the teacher, who I don't know, think I'm slow than my father in law. I was very intimidated by him when I first went to their house. Luckily I never had him in high school, but his kids speak with proper grammar and I usually don't. Not because I can't. Usually just because I don't want to. Until I met him. Now I try all the time if I'm talking to him.

I think that the fears keeping me inside go hand in hand with the fears keeping me from writing. I read what I write and think it's garbage. So I don't let anyone see what I'm writing anymore. When I first started I had what the blog I read calls a beta reader, but I've even stopped sending her the pages. For two reasons. I don't think that she has the time anymore, and I'm not writing as much anymore. I'm just too scared. I sit down to write, and I get writers block because I want to write something great, and I'm afraid I can't do great and so I just sit there. I read other peoples works and think it's great. I want to get over this. I don't really even care if I was ever a published writer, I just want to finish what I start. I want to write for me. And if anyone else enjoys it, so much the better. I hate that the fear is almost paralyzing. My goal is to get past it... now to figure out how... lol