This is me procrastinating.

I was asked to write a 900-word guest blog and was over the moon thrilled and immediately pitched a few ideas. “I'd love a piece on why you write primarily about women's friendships,” was her reply. My mind immediately got to work. Bits and pieces started coming to me: how lonely it feels while you’re in the trenches of parenting teenagers who are certain they know best, how gut wrenching it is to watch your children drive away with all their stuff, how checking for breathing becomes checking for location and safe driving speed, how miraculous it feels to witness your children’s firsts—all the way through the births of their own children. How awesome it is to watch the cycle begin all over again. 

This morning, I started thinking about how, as women, we rely on our friendships to be that safe place in the storm, to dole out the words of wisdom at just the right time, at others, to simply listen. Our female friendships at every stage of adulthood are sometimes what keep us going through the days when all we want to do is crawl into bed and pull the covers all the way up. They're the people that truly understand the invisible load we carry and remind us to set it down for a moment when it gets too heavy to manage.

Female friendships are self care. This is what I was going to write about.

I set my coffee down and jumped up from the couch. “I’m going to write that article,” I declared to my husband, then set to work doing everything but, trying everything I could think of to still my racing mind. Fifteen minutes later, I returned to the family room, shaking my hands at my sides. I’d just realized that, if I got it right, I could help my readers find the world I’d created. They could connect with the friendships I’d developed in that world. They could fall in love with my characters.

But then it came. The voice in my head that insists on being heard. That wants so desperately to be believed.

“What if they don’t?”

Panic set in as I considered the notion that more people would read my stories and hate it all. They would see through what others hadn’t and realize it was terrible. That I am terrible. The feeling consumed me, but I had the presence of mind to go to the one person that can always cut through my bullshit. 

“What if they hate it?”

My husband set his phone down, sat back against the cushion behind him, and looked up at me. “Why would they?”

“What if it’s terrible?”

“Has anyone told you it’s terrible?” 

Well no, but…

I started shaking my hands again. “What if they’re all just being nice?”

“How many reviews do you have? How many of them hated it?”

“One.”

“Go write the article.”

So here I am, not writing the article, but I’m getting closer. I’m almost there, and I’m starting to feel like I can do it justice.

I hope I see you there, and I hope you see yourself as well.

Love,

Jess