Monthly Archives: September 2014

A prerequisite to being a writer is this: you must have some significant level of self-doubt or insecurity. You must question your ability to mold words into a thought-provoking sentence. Everything you write is up for criticism by you.

I often think to myself: This is crap. What am I writing? That doesn’t sound good. No one is going to “get” that. What I am I doing here and where the hell are my pants? Is it necessary to wear pants here? Is there a dress code? Who invited me anyway? It was probably a mistake. I got the invitation by accident. The mail-person put it in the wrong box. It was for apartment #2.

Despite the fact that I am painfully insecure and I’m always concerned that you’re staring at the yogurt stain on my shirt, I keep writing anyway. I think about the novels I’ve read with insecure protagonists. There are so many of them. It must be a thing. Writers doubt themselves, their words, their talent, their ability to create a mood, a scene or tell a compelling story.

That’s me. I’m in the abyss of self-doubt, because I don’t know what to say, so I’m saying that. I’m not going to sit here and fake it. I’m not going to try to think of something funny to say or write a thought-provoking article because I don’t have anything in my brain right now.

I admit that I’m insecure, because I know that there are other writers out there who feel the same way. I close my eyes and jump in my writing. I fake being brave. When in reality, I’m terrified of what people are thinking when they’re reading my words.

If you thought everything you wrote was amazing, then you wouldn’t try to write anymore. There are more stories in me and there are more stories in you. We can be insecure and profound at the same time. We can doubt every single word that graces the page and still send a message home.

Self-doubt is normal in writing. The goal (for me) is to keep writing despite the voice that tells me that what I’m putting out there isn’t worth saying. So if you’re writing something now and you’re thinking to yourself: this is awful, you’re not alone. I’m right there with you.

The classic children’s book “Frog and Toad are Friends” had us all believing earnestly that these two creatures enjoyed one another’s company.

 

I’m here to tell you that we’ve been duped by Arnold Lobel (the author) and that Frog and Toad are not (as the title suggests) friends. Brace yourselves as I uncover some bad behavior from one of these seemingly innocent amphibians.

In the story “The Swim,” Toad asks Frog one favor. Toad agrees to jump in the water and go for a swim on the condition that no one sees him in his bathing suit.

If Frog was any kind of friend, he would have just said, “I’ve got you bro,” and that would have been the end of it. But he goes on to question Toad’s motivation, despite the fact that this seems to be a sensitive topic. That right there should have been a red flag for toad.

Frog seems to be on board with this plan after he recognizes that Toad has body image issues. But then trouble arises. Some other animals emerge at the river bank and want to see what Toad looks like in his bathing suit.

It doesn’t take Frog long to cower under peer pressure. Instead of having his friend’s back, he throws up his hands and tells Toad that everyone is just dying to see what he looks like in his bathing suit. He can’t stop them from being so damn curious.

Naturally, having body dysmorphic disorder, Toad has not interest in climbing out of the water and getting glared at in his wet bathing suit. He was counting on Frog to be there for him and that plan failed miserably. So now he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. To make matters worse, it’s frigid in that water.

Well, now Toad has no choice but to get out of the water, since he’s nearly got hypothermia. So he braces himself for what will happen next.

Now Toad is standing there freezing and self-conscious. Frog isn’t doing anything to help his supposed friend. Then it gets worse.

All of the animals start hysterically laughing at Toad in his bathing suit. And if you look closely at the above photograph, Frog is laughing right along with them. Frog, who is supposed to be Toad’s best friend.

Just in case there was any ambiguity as to whether or not Frog laughed at Toad, Lobel spells it out for the reader. Yes, Frog laughed at Toad. Frog was more like a sheep than a frog. He left his buddy in the dust. Naturally, Toad wants to know why his “friend” is laughing at him.

Toad has had enough. His self esteem is shattered and he knows where his allegiances lie. What else is there to do but go home. So that what he does. He’s out of there.

Toad is pissed off, justifiably, and Frog (as evident in this picture) is shows no remorse for his actions and if given the opportunity would throw Toad under the proverbial bus again just so that he could be liked by the other animals.

Clearly, Frog is not Toad’s friend. Therefore, the title of this anthology is erroneous. It should be renamed “Frog and Toad are NOT Friends.”

Faith is jumping before you know if there is soft ground to land on. It’s leaping hoping that someone will catch you in their arms. Faith is knowing that ultimately, things are going to be all right.

Everything is going to work out.

Faith is trusting in yourself.

I listened to myself. I trusted my intuition. I jumped. He had faith in me, because I had faith in me.

I reached for it.

I wanted it.

I got it.

Today I believe in me.

Tomorrow I believe in you.

I’m taking a prompt from Rachel Thompson and I am writing what scares me.

Confession: I let other what other people think of me determine my worth. If it seems like someone is angry with me or “doesn’t like me” I feel awful inside. I am having a day like that today. Today I am feeling badly about myself because of the way that I believe that other people see me.

I’m trying to search for the parts of myself that I like. But I feel like “a failure,” and “a burden to others,” and “not a great adult,” whatever that means. I’m having a rough self-esteem day. I have been called these things by others.

The first step to healing from these feelings is to recognize that they are not accurate representations of who I am. In reality, I’m not a failure, a “bad adult” or “a burden.” But the feelings surround me like black clouds taunting me.

You can’t do it. They say.

Give up

You can’t keep a full time job

They are pesky mean little trolls that tell me I’m worthless. And these trolls are bouncing around inside my brain. The trolls are laughing at me while they stand above me on a bridge. I’m under the bridge in the water trying to swim to shore. They just laugh and laugh.

The truth is: I can save myself.

I can swim to shore.

I have the tools to tell the trolls to run for the hills.

If I close my eyes and I breathe deeply and summon every ounce of strength that I have, I can fight them.

For now, I’m treading water…

trying to find the energy to keep going.

My daughter Kellie is a really sweet kid. She is 17 and still a bit shy and insecure but really seems to be coming into her own. And she is really blossoming in terms of her appearance and the boys are starting to take notice. She is on the cheerleading squad and about a year ago a boy named Eric who is a star football player approached her after cheerleading practice.

After chatting for a bit, he asked her out on a date. She was thrilled beyond belief! This would be her first date and she couldn’t believe he even knew who she was. But then after a phone conversation or two, she didn’t hear from him, and the days went by and he never followed up on the date that he had set. She was crushed, though not totally shocked, since her friends had warned her that he was a bit of a jerk.

Then, to add insult to injury, she discovered he just started dating another girl named Natalie who is very pretty, popular and well, rather buxom too. Needless to say, fair or not, she was quite resentful toward Natalie and bitter over the whole situation. However, I did have to chuckle when she said that she hated all girls with big boobs.

Well anyway, one day during lunch at the cafeteria, Natalie stopped by Kellie’s table to talk to her. She asked if it was true if Eric stood her up, which of course Kellie confirmed. Then Natalie told Kellie that she wanted her to watch something. Natalie walked over to a completely unsuspecting Eric, where he was sitting at a lunch table with all of his football buddies. Then, in an academy award winning moment, she lifted his chin with one hand to get just the right angle….and SMACK! she slapped his face with the other.

Then Kellie overheard Natalie say: “you don’t get to juggle women and toss one aside for another. I want nothing more to do with you!” Natalie walked off, not the least bit shaken by the incident according to Kellie. Eric, on the other hand, sat there looking quite ashamed and embarrassed, rubbing his cheek.

Natalie then came back to Kellie, gave her a hug, and told her that she never would have dated Eric had she known what he did to Kellie. WOW Just an amazing turn of events. Kellie was blown away by all of this and learned some very important lessons from this experience.