Hi Darling Ones,

Last night I had a conversation with my friend, Em, about writing, writing habits, and routine. It was a great talk and we vowed in the new year to establish a routine and hold each other accountable. I’m excited, because I want to work on my writing and my penmanship.

I’ve been woefully lax on the physical practice of writing. I’m easily frustrated with the tremor and my Floppy Scoop gets tired fast when gripping a pen. However, I really miss writing. I miss jotting down ideas in my planner, which I abandoned early this year due to the poor penmanship.

While talking about writing I confessed to her that I’m always scared before clicking publish on an I Will Dare post.

“Still?” she asked, a little incredulous. “After all these years?”
“Hell, yeah,” I said. “It’s never not scary to put yourself out there.”

I don’t know what was more surprising: that I admitted it or that she was so shocked.

Then I explained to her just because it looks easy doesn’t mean it is easy. Putting your thoughts and feelings out into the world in any way always feels a little dicey. Putting them onto the Internet in the same place, an easy-to-find and reference place, for TWENTY-FOUR years feels like both utter foolishness and extreme bravery.

I mean, come on, is there any body worse than the you from five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago? Ugh. Not to me. Past-Jodi was insufferable and so annoying. Thankfully, I’ve grown, learned more, and do better now. And since this is an ongoing process, old me will always be a little bit worse than present me.

Still, it’s scary! What if people don’t get it? What if I fail at getting my point across? What if nobody cares? What if everyone cares? What if I hurt/anger/befuddle someone? What if I look stupid?

No matter how many times I hit “publish” I still worry. I will always worry, but I’ll always do it because I want to. There is value in what I have to say, in my existence on this planet and in this moment.

The TTHM use to tell me that I should do something scary every day, and boy, howdy, do I ever. Do I ever.

Your favorite fraidy cat,
Jodi