Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
As best stories sometimes come out of their authors’ fears, what do you say for writing about one thing that scares you every day? For example, what scares you today?

I feel like nearly every day since becoming a mother, my life dictates that I automatically do at least one thing every day that scares me. Motherhood is one terrifying-as-fuck journey some days for real. I find myself fairly well-rooted in the fear that I am screwing up , even on the days when I grudgingly award myself an A- for parenting at the close of a particularly productive trip around the sun.

As my daughter rapidly approaches puberty, some days I am completely overwhelmed by those fears. We get sidelined by epic shouting matches as she seems compelled to argue with me over the most mundane things. It seems we are destined to never agree on a wide spectrum of topics from, "what shirt goes best with those leggings", or "why chicken nuggets are still chicken" to "why one particular Hamilton cover is in fact, not Sia but some other artist". Sadly, these are all very real examples drawn from actual arguments. I blame our most irrational debates on burgeoning hormones and on my patience and sanity, both of which have been severely compromised in the wake of COVID.

I try not to to think about the fact that she's not even a preteen yet. The truth is that real emotional fireworks haven't started yet and that thought fills me with a numb horror some days. I wonder how we will make it through these coming years, she and I. The anxiety overwhelms me at times and I have to take step back. I have to slow down. I have to acknowledge that we have amazing moments still too. 

For as much as we may battle, she will still randomly take my hand in the grocery store, unconsciously slipping her delicate fingers through mine. She still prefers to sleep in between us most nights and we one of us will always wake with her lithe body snuggled up against our back or her small face pressed against our neck. As much as she loves time with her friends, she seems content to settle back into time with us after returning from play dates and sleepovers. The graceful and forgiving truth is that as often as I have seen the budding adolescent in her these past weeks and months, I have also had glimpses of the loving, dependent child she still is in her heart and it gives me a beautiful respite from the fear.

Some days...

The hours are quickly passing before I have to make my business trip.  As much as I worry about leaving, I also recognize how badly I need to get away and gain some perception.  Over the last few weeks I have felt my footing slipping, my will to do anything, draining away. It all feels like too much effort to force myself into an existence when I feel so overwhelmingly invisible.

I feel the need to slip into someplace where I don't expect to be seen or paid attention too.  I crave a world where I have no expectations of my loved ones, my career or my ability to be heard and noticed. It is the expectations that crush me. If I did not set expectations, then I would not have to register the disappointments. I need a crash course in how to live life without expectations, for myself or for anyone else.

I'm grateful for what I have in this life. I wish that felt like enough all the time. I wish my many blessings were enough to make me feel full and complete and successful at this stage in my life. Some days though,  they are not. Some days all I see are the failings, all I feel is the loneliness and the tide of darkness slowly creeping up on me.  Some days my accomplishments feel far too few and insubstantial and whatever ambitions I may have, seem to be overreaching.  Some days I wish I had someone I knew would pick up on the other end of a late night phone call or be the voice that asks me, "am I okay?".  Some days I wish I it wasn't so hard to feel seen.

It is crazy that someone who feels so alone is somehow looking forward to spending time actually being alone.  It is crazy that I actually find comfort in knowing I'm going some place where I will be actively ignored. Maybe its because for once, my expectations about people and situations will prove true and I won't be disappointed. For once, for the next few days, things will be exactly as I expect them to be.

I think I might be in the middle of a mid-life depression or something. Maybe I have felt some of the losses this past year more acutely then I thought.  I don't know.  I just know I feel vacant, like a placeholder, not a real person some days. I feel robotic and pedestrian. I oscillate between rage and an acquiescing numbness. I feel like I want to shine but can only manage the weakest flicker, like some dying candle losing its battle with the dark. At least I am not manic, wildly swinging from joy to despair, but rather I'm stuck in the middle of the grays...all the shadowed hues. My days of vivid color are too few and far between. I tell myself this will pass, this stage of my life is just some mediocre plateau and eventually I will wake up. I will wake up to me, to the woman in the mirror. I see her at least. She isn't invisible to me. I think she's just lost.

Trending in Fear and Writers Write

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1660 June 2, 2017
What's trending where you are?

Fear. Fear is trending in my little corner of the world.

I live in a blue state and if anything is trending most apparently here, it is the constant undercurrent of fear. Many of the people that live here are scared they will lose their healthcare, they are scared they will lose their hard-won rights. They are scared that this administration is making decisions based on winning another four years rather than unifying a broken and divided country. Even among those that supported Trump, there is a fear that he may not be all that they hoped and the motivations behind some of the recent decisions made may be less honorable, less transparent than his surrogates insist they are.

I have tried to remain politically independent - it is almost a job requirement as I work in an industry that is largely supported by conservatives. Yet, more and more I feel myself identifying with those in my community. I find it more and more difficult to try to accept the agenda of the administration or extend a measure of good faith to this White House and current President. I was admittedly never a Trump supporter but I tried to be hopeful. I tried to find a middle ground. I tried to have faith that as a nation, we could unify under our leadership. But, I am out of good faith. I am disappointed. I am unimpressed. I am fearful.

The President came here recently for a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy. The protesters were there bright and early. My daughter craned her neck to peer at them as I drove her to school. Her school is adjacent to the CG campus so the streets where lined on both sides with people holding signs. It was early and things were calm. People were respectful. The police were drinking coffee and chatting with the groups on both sides. She and I talked about civil protest, we talked about democracy and freedom of speech. I told myself it was a good lesson and experience for her. I went to work, monitoring the event via NPR live streams and social media.

Then, I saw him, standing there proudly in the full white robes, the recognizable costume of the KKK. Seriously? Here? In this community there is such a person who feels embolden enough to be out here like this? And before you even say it, there were plenty of people in the "pink hats" I know...BUT historically, as far I as understand, no one wearing a "vagina hat" has ever been associated with the degenerate, violent, racial persecution and murderous acts perpetrated by the clan. Who are these people who live and exist among us? Who are these people that harbor these kinds of ideals in their hearts and who suddenly feel that this President and his administration has some how given them a pass to be the fear-inciting hate-mongers of their own dreams? Fear. I felt it that day, right down to my toes.

Suddenly, I wasn't sure sure this was such a great lesson for my daughter...my mixed faith, bi-cultural daughter. Suddenly, I was fearful for her.

A week later, I watched an intoxicated Trump supporter, and Connecticut resident, verbally attack a Muslim family on a beach in Texas. He proudly and repeatedly struck his chest saying "Trump is my fucking President", while he hurled hate speech at them and grabbed his crotch suggestively. This past week, a good Samaritan was stabbed to death after coming to the defense of Muslim women on a train who were being openly harassed.

What kind of world are we cultivating for our children? Where are the leaders working to unify us as Americans? Where is the President who will help heal our fractured masses?

Fear. I get it now. I have it now too.


"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1176 June 2, 201
All of us have slumps and getting back on track varies drastically among us so let's toss ideas around on how to stay motivated with our writing. What works best for you?

My writing career is constantly hampered by the availability of free time. I have very little hours in a day that are not already allocated to mothering a growing daughter and pursuing a career. I live under pretty consistently thought bubble of "not enough hours in the day..sad face emoji". Motivation has never been an issue when you are compelled to do something, as I have always been to write. Truly successful writers, write. They find the time. They have the discipline. They make sacrifices in pursuit of their craft. They don't force their best work into life by executing compartmentalized writing sessions over their lunch hour a few times a week. I know this. I am largely at peace with that knowledge I suppose. It makes those random publication acceptances so surprising and sweet.

I know that trolling submission deadlines helps me sometimes, a proposed anthology theme might spark off a creative well. I use Duotrope.com to search accepting markets and calls for specific submissions. I try to keep a blog, write my assignments and keep plugging forward. Sometimes something grows from exercising my writing muscles no matter how mundane it seems at the time.

The best advice I have is to just write, whenever, however....just do it. Each time you do, you are giving yourself the opportunity to get better and to connect with what you are in your heart...a writer.

The Agony of Certainty

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 883 August 8th, 2016
Prompt: What do you think about this feeling of “I should have done better!” in any area? Can it be a positive or negative motivator in some way?


This prompt feels dangerous to me today because despite all my knowledge and effort, the doubts have been hovering just outside my thoughts lately, insidious and seeping. I see him, stumbling across the road, swaying on his feet, the effort to keep himself upright painfully obvious. I see him in my dreams, and all day long as I try to get my work done. I see him and I think, could I have saved him? Can I still? I ask myself the questions and doubt bites raw, bleeding ribbons into my guts.

I think back to the all the chances, to all the opportunities I watched him burn through. I think back to how so many tried to help him. There have been many kind people who have stepped up, who have extended their hearts over the years. I've seen the progress he's made under the right care, promises of a hopeless path digressed and a life renewed. I've been there when he's walked away, back into the darkness again. It is beyond tormenting.

"Should I have done better?" I don't know. I did the best I could the first time I lost someone to the black pit of addiction. I had given so much away, I nearly offered up my own life in the process of trying to save his. I knew it was not something I could bear ever again. No human on Earth should have to suffer through the pain and agony of addiction and loss more than once. It rips out your soul at the roots and breaks your heart in a way that it can never fully heal again. Its a endless wound and scar tissue burns hot with every reminder, with every memory thrust upon you. You never forget and when you see it again, that toxin demon in another, your entire system engages everything it can to protect you from getting sucked down again. For each moment that you search familiar eyes and see the light fading behind the irises, the certainty rises inside you like some terrible tide. And so I ask myself, "should I have done better?" And there is both a terrible doubt and an absolute certainty at the same time and the dichotomy is pure agony.



"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1363: August 8, 2016
Prompt: Each time the wind blew, she could hear the flowers talking to her. Tell me what the flowers said to her.

The brittle branches above her head bob heavily with the fat, fragrant blooms. She reaches up and traps one in her palm, burying her nose in the tiny purple flowers, breathing deep their perfume. Its a familiar scent that evokes memories of her childhood. She remembers cutting and arranging the lilacs into thick bouquets with her grandmother. She remembers bouncing on her toes under the blooms, tapping the rain from the blossoms with a thin branch and squealing when the water hit her bare shoulders and back. Each year the lilacs bushes would bloom at the edge of her grandmother's property, healthy and full, the higher boughs reaching into the skies three of four feet higher than her head. They had all but died out now, thinned to where they had to be cleared out. She had loved those flowers and when she had driven past the wide wall of lilacs, she hadn't been able to resist going back. She had wanted to touch them, breath in their sweetness. She wanted to reconnect with a part of her past that was simple, fragrant and full of promise.