i reposted the wrong post. how did i manage that.

when i went to the poet rebecca loudons blog on friday i read a post that i found so typically honest and defenseless but strong as only she can be but when i pasted it into this blog i thought this isnt as great as i remember but had no time to double check and low and behold i HAD reposted the wrong post. anyway, this is what id meant to highlight to you:


POSTED BY RADISH KING AT 7:59 AM 2 COMMENTS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2009

Because my day is going slow work-wise and I’ve already taken my meds and I took a walk along the river, now I have time to begin to breed fear in my pinched little heart. When I was 25 years old a man told me, The only unattractive thing about you is your fear. I can’t imagine that I was afraid of much at 25, I hadn’t even had a child, and this man was more than a little bit woo-woo in his “spiritual” leanings, if you can call the ME generation self help Esalen Lifespring Adventures in Excellence transactional therapy and Gurjeiff mumbo-jumbo of the late 70s spiritual. Besides he wanted in my pants. It took a few years to really learn to be afraid and several more years of being crazy and unmedicated to truly nail it.

Right now my fear revolves around a trinity of issues. Firstly, the layoffs coming quickly down the pike at my glamorous job are giving me nail biting grief even though I don’t bite my nails but I might find a good sized nail, say a 2 penny nail, to chew on shortly.

Secondly, I am afraid of my introduction to the quartet tonight even though I’ve known the cellist for 25 years and I played quartets with her every Tuesday for over 2 years and I do truly adore her. But I have this queasy stomach that tells me I’ll play like a tourist or I won’t be able to find her house or I’ll get sudden night blindness and a bear will wander onto the freeway and I'll hit it with my car ruining both my car and the bear or what if I spill something on my blouse if it's not already covered in bear blood or I get in a car accident or I break a finger between now and then. I have drugs for anxiety but I can’t take them and play. So I have to just live with it. My natural instinct is to go home RIGHT NOW and get in bed and pull the covers over my head. Oh that would be good. It would feel so safe and warm and tidy and expected. Then I’d cry because I really really really want to play Beethoven tonight. I just have a slightly irrational PHOBIA of leaving my house. Ever.

(Before I go on to my next fear, I’d like to say that people who think mental illness is nothing but weakness and lack of will and even worse, a lack of Jesus are stupid and wrong. Yeah, you know who you are. I haven’t forgotten that conversation.)

But I digress. My thirdly fear is that no one will come to my reading. I had to write a grant to get the space for this reading and I have fairly invited everyone I know and only a couple of people I don’t know. I’m not afraid one single bit of reading but I am afraid of just reading to Alice and my son. If Alice makes it. She forgot to come to the last reading for which I have forgiven her because I adore her. Just enough people to fill the space. They don’t have to spill out or anything. I’d like to sell a couple books too but I’m not afraid of not selling books. I have a terrible fear of reading to a completely empty room. Of no one showing up. Maybe it’s actually a fear that no one cares. Or, more basically, no one loves me. I guess that’s really it.