I have a lot of doubt and anxiety about this blog. It’s not like I always wanted to be published or have my words read by the general public. While this blog didn’t come out of the blue, it also still surprised me a little. If you’ve read anything I’ve written up to this point, you may have seen that I’m going into this a little blind and have asked for grace along the way. Somehow, I need to figure out how to give myself grace, too.

I’ve thought a decent amount about if and why I should do this. Does my voice and what I have to say matter any more than someone else’s? Of course not. I recognize the large amount of privilege most parts of my identity holds. And yet, I try to speak into the fact that I still have a voice. I still have thoughts. I still have opinions. I still have experiences. Now, sharing those thoughts and opinions are a completely different story. I’m a millennial, and as with most millennials I’m sure, growing up with the quick advancement of technology I learned all the horrors of what could come of posting online. Be careful what you post online, because it will be cemented there forever and may have the opportunity to ruin your future. In the professional world, I also learned about the downsides of putting certain things in writing. And here I am, doing both. There is some truth to these statements, but they also shouldn’t keep us from trying to share anything at all. Social media and the online world is a powerful tool. I have seen what a terrible place it can be, but I have also seen how beautiful it can be. Community, a sense of self, camaraderie, feeling seen and heard; all of these have been found online. We can’t know if anyone else feels the way we feel or needs to be heard or helped until we share it out loud. If it is done with kindness, I think sharing our thoughts and feelings can be extremely powerful and uplifting.

Growing up I always strived for perfection, particularly in school. If I didn’t get an A or B, I would break down crying, feeling like a failure. This was pressure I never felt my family placed on me, but pressure I placed on myself. I compared myself to my siblings and my classmates, all of which I looked up to and strived to be. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it made me an achiever who eventually did get her master’s degree, it also contributed to my lack of feeling enough. At minimum, feeling enough for myself. Now, it’s not like I didn’t feel like I was my truest self growing up because looking back I do think there were times I was probably more myself then than I have been now. But I can also see a girl who tried so hard to earn everything she got instead of realizing that success doesn’t equate to worth.

Why do I share this story? Because I think it perfectly describes how and why I am so terrified to put my words out in the world. I don’t feel like I’ve earned this right to share what is on my mind. To share the struggles that I’m facing because they seem so trivial in the world we are living in. I don’t have any degrees in English. And I have zero credentials saying that my words mean anything to anyone other than friends and family who have said they enjoy my writing. If someone doesn’t tell me my writing is good, then what does that make of my writing? Or even worse, what does that make of me? What makes me qualified to being writing here to you? These are the questions posed by my anxiety that I struggle with most. My experiences make me qualified. My feelings make me qualified. Just being human makes me qualified. And my success, or lack thereof, does not equate to or reflect my worth.

Will I regret sharing some of my thoughts, opinions, and advice online, particularly as a recovering people pleaser? Probably. Will someone else’s work be better than mine? Yes. Would I regret it more if I chose to give into my fear instead? Also probably. In a people pleaser and perfectionists mind, there is no winning. But the title of this blog is ‘Growing in Authenticity’ for a reason. This is me, trying to figure out how to be my true self, not just in my apartment alone, but standing up for who I am amongst everyone around me. And I have gained an immense amount of courage to do this very thing, including posting on platforms like TikTok, not only from family and friends, but from other influencers who inspired me to do the same.

I share this not to ask for sympathy, but to show that this truly does terrify me. But if I’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that I can do hard things. This may not seem that hard, but putting yourself out there in any regard, is a hard thing. I share this to hopefully give you courage and strength to also do the hard thing. Whether that’s getting out of bed in the morning, saying hi to a stranger, traveling to a place you’ve never been, or taking the steps to figure out who you are and want to be. I’m proud of you for doing what you can in this moment to take whatever that next step looks like for you. Know that you are not alone and we are all doing things that terrify us. We are all struggling in one way or another. But at minimum, you are enough.

Poem I wrote a while ago that I feel encompasses this post:

Today is Day