When at Your Best Friend’s Bachelorette Party

I am so proud of my writing. I cherish the feeling of those that I love being able to understand me more deeply, for them to know who I am separate from the external context.

Sometimes, I find myself hesitant with those I am closest with. Creating a narrative in my head that doesn’t give them the benefit of the doubt. A space I leave open out of fear of being too known, a protective mechanism that I have historically employed. Even coming into this weekend, there was an anxiousness about showing up as new version of myself within the relationships of those that have been there for most of the journey, for countless rough drafts. I was nervous I would be seen as a fraud, that the gig was up, my imposter syndrome finally revealed. But, as I sit here now on the porch overlooking the softly rolling waves, a house full of girls laughing and sleeping and singing behind me, a house full of sisterhood, and support, and all the good parts bottled up, I realize how baseless my nervousness was. 

I am so loved. And to hear my friends that are a safe space incarnated use my writing as a reference, for understanding me better, for understanding themselves better, for them to say yes, I actually read something you wrote about that and it offered me an interesting perspective through your lens, or it made me explore “this experience” within my own life, or my mothers, or my neighbors. Hearing that makes me want to melt into a puddle and let them drink me as if I were lemonade. I can not nest close enough to their being. Cannot intertwine myself and their love and life and experiences close enough. For their knowing to be mine and vice versa. 

I feel so lucky. I feel thankful, and deserving, and underserving all at the same time for a love like this. For friends like this. 

Writing, feeling, existing, sharing my writing, is such a constant battle within my own mind. A, why would you share these embarrassing things about yourself?!?!? A, why do you think your experience is important enough to share? A, why won’t you stop talking about this, it’s annoying. Which simplifies each time into the question: is it really worth it?

Is it all worth it? The sharing, the connections, the vulnerability, the admittance of fear and the acceptance of the fragility of being a human, and of all the absolutely whack thoughts going on in my head and throughout my body at any given moment. Is it worth sharing all the parts of me that make me uncomfortable? That others would rather not explore within themselves. And although the former points tend to be very persuasive in arguments, I still answer, inevitably and a hundred thousand times over, yes. 

Because I feel the need to articulate for no one other than myself. I share for no one in particular and everyone all at once. And the way it feels to be seen, to offer myself without apology, to talk to my best friends about my words, my experiences, my depths, is something so uniquely soul awakening I may not know exactly what it is, but I know it can’t be wrong. 

And I am just really trying to no longer be afraid of your opinion of me. I no longer want to sacrifice those moments of recognition to fear of judgement. And if someone thinks of it as silly, or embarrassing or dramatic that’s their thought to carry, not mine. 

And, I am not better than any other single person on this earth, I am just trying to figure it out in live time, and accept that a huge part of figuring it out is never knowing but still trying your best to love yourself and love others and enjoy the in between.