What Would You Write If You Weren’t Afraid?

I’m sitting here on Öland, where I’m staying in a friend’s summer cabin for a couple of weeks. It’s the calm between storms. A slice of solitude between what was a very busy seven weeks that left me socially burnt out and in need of a retreat from the world. Two weeks here, and then a final sprint through two very busy two weeks back in Stockholm… with a possible trip to Gotland for a photo shoot that I’m still not sure will fit in the calendar.

So here I am, surrounded by lilac bushes galore — a feast for both the nose and the eyes. The ears get a special treat of almost constant birdsong.

Spring is springing, as it were.

Just toodling around on a vintage Crescent bike across the Stora Alvaret, on Öland. Take note: this is not the appropriate bike for this activity.

My brain, too, seems to be waking up with the changing of the seasons. I have been coming back to life, but the resuscitation has been anything but gentle. Like an electric jolt to the heart that violently jerks someone back to life, my brain and heart and soul have been similarly shaken.

It’s an all too familiar process. When I have been depressed for long periods, there comes a time when the clouds finally clear, and I am Savannah again. My essence — my soul, my spirit, my whatever it is — comes back into my body. It leaves during those times of depression, because it doesn’t feel safe. This is, in other, more science-y terms, textbook dissociation. I’m a pro at it.

These times when I make my return to earth are special because, well, I think I’m a pretty great person when I’m feeling good (if I’m being honest and not so humble). But for every positive, there is a negative, and the challenge that comes with these times shows up in the pendulum swinging toward anxiety. With this jerk back to life, ideas of projects and work and expansive possibilities explode in my brain, in my heart, and on the pages of my journal. I struggle to keep up with myself as excitement pours through my soul. Eventually, that unchecked excitement turns into that tornado of anxiety. I lose my head for a bit, until I face-plant into a dark, heavy wall of depression.

Which is what happened last night. Everything good slammed to a halt as I careened over this cliff into that dark abyss once again, and I thought: was that it? It felt like the last several weeks of growth and healing and progress and confidence in my work and my business were suddenly erased.

I hoped that sleep would help, and fortunately, I woke up feeling better. Still, I have navigated the day with some caution. I remind myself that I can be excited. But that excitement needs to have a more sustainable, slower pace. It’s when excitement mixes with FOMO that things begin to go awry.

All of which leads me to a book that I recently started reading, which prompted the question: What would you write if you weren’t afraid?

A couple of days ago, I dove in to Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life. The book is a collection of 100 essays from authors, paired with prompts. It’s modeled after a 100 day challenge that she hosted during the pandemic, The Isolation Journals. Each essay is offered as a source of inspiration — something for the brain to chew on — before leading you into a writing prompt to explore your own thoughts.

At least, that is what I gather having read only the introduction and the first essay. So, thank you to Dani Shapiro for this first question, and her piece, “Here Goes Nothing.”

It’s not that I haven’t been writing and have needed a prompt to get my brain churning. I have, at this point, quite a lot of writing to catch up on — transferring words from my journal to this shiny screen in front of you. But I have found myself a little bored of my thoughts, which is exactly what Jaouad talks about in her introduction. I have needed, without knowing, some targeted inspiration for some structured thinking.

And, apparently, to set a ten minute timer. Because that’s what I was told to do in Shapiro’s prompt.

Even though I write almost everyday (and I feel the side effects if I don’t), the introduction of the ten minute timer created a container. As someone who could spend all day writing, this gave me that needed structure to keep from drowning in thoughts and words for hours on-end.

Did I write for more than ten minutes? Of course I did. And this entire essay up to this point wasn’t even a part of it.

So on that note, let’s dive in. And if you’d like to join me? Feel free to pull out your journal and do the same.

What would you write if you weren’t afraid?

I like to think that I don’t filter my writing, because why would I?

No one is going to read it, right?

Well, except that I believe that they will. I want them to. I want all of my writing to eventually become something I can untangle — to rewrite on the computer for the world to see. Every word, every drop.

Because of this, it might be true that I automatically try to do a preliminary untangling in my head. Somewhere between where my thought first forms, and where pen meets paper.

The more concise to start, the easier the external editing. But then… What untangled thoughts am I missing? Where is the mess? What does the mess want to say, that I am silencing?

I know what I’m afraid of, at least in life. I’m afraid of failing, of never truly thriving. I’m afraid of losing myself in other people. Of aging.

What am I afraid of writing? Maybe it’s in being vulnerable. Sharing my heart with the world and having the truth of my own experience hurt others. This is why long distance is a love language. I am wary of people taking a step into my brain when I am there in real life with them.

Because I don’t often share the depth of my inner world through my lips. My way is through my pen.

And what if what I have to say is shocking? What if I share the depth of my thoughts of a shared experience, and the other person is taken aback at how different my internal translation of reality was from theirs?

I am reminded of a poem that I wrote, “Salted Meringue,” and one of my favourite stanzas:

will you have the courage
to take a breath
expand your lungs
with my last exhale
breathe me in
dive deep
and meet me underneath

What if people no longer want to be around me or do things with me, because they know or suspect that beneath the surface, I am analyzing and feeling and searching for meaning?

Because I cannot just sit floating casually on the surface. I cannot entertain small talk. It is a skill I am lacking that I don’t care to cultivate.

What if this knowing of my inner world causes them anxiety to sit in silence with me, knowing that I’m busy writing and weaving narratives in my head?

As I write this, I can’t help thinking that this train of thought is a little self-absorbed. I’m reminded that, as humans, our brains are meaning making machines. Everyone is busy writing their own story, through their unique lens.

It is like someone who is worried about going to the gym because everyone will be watching them, analyzing their poor form and judging them.

But the people at the gym, well they are the self-absorbed ones. They’re too busy watching their biceps in the mirror to take notice of what you’re doing. (And today, sadly, they are even more busy scrolling through their phone.)

Yes, this is all true… And I hear a whisper that tells me it’s a little more complex than that.

There is a shimmering mirage of fear that I can see if I squint my eyes and look closer.

At the root of it all, is a lack of trust. My words have been used a weapons in the past. Weapons that have been turned on me.

The expression of my heart, my dreams, my curiosities… the doubts, the questions… the natural state my mind is in as a wanderer…

It has in the past been translated by those who don’t know me, to be perceived as some kind of threat that must be passed on to those closest to me.

Perhaps this is a symptom of small town dynamics that I refuse to subscribe to. Perhaps it’s a puritanical American thing, where the independent woman is an illusion — especially when she is in partnership.

Partnership = Property

All independent thinking is a threat. How dare you have dreams, yearnings, fears, questions, and doubts that don’t revolve around anyone else but you.

And how dare you share them with the world, instead of quietly behind closed doors — a “problem” for a romantic partner to solve. So that he can be the knight in shining armor to your damsel in distress.

But it shouldn’t be that way. Some things are not about another person. Some things are about our heart and our soul. And in those cases, healing may be a collective process. A conversation with others in the world.

My own expression of Self alchemized into written word, at these times, has been projected on to carry the weight of shame akin to cheating.

This has happened in multiple past relationships. Mostly in small town America. I share something with the world about a yearning for Nordic countries, for example, and an acquaintance reads it and alerts the at-time partner that I want to move away. Thus planting a seed of drama, and painting me into a villain of betrayal.

All of these scenarios have been related to travel. International travel. Solo travel. Apparently the combination of those things put together creates a threatening woman who must be gossiped about through whispers down the small-town grapevine.

So I guess that when I keep digging to the roots of this question, I do indeed find a source of fear. That people I don’t know will twist my words and turn it into drama. At least, that is, if I am in a relationship. Some hero must swoop in to save a man from my unchecked independence.

Because of this, I barely shared anything with the world during the first two years I lived in Bellingham. Writing is a lifeline, a language of my soul. So a significant part of me became dormant. The resurrection has been a slow one.

But it isn’t just about writing. It isn’t just about me.

These scenarios paint an ugly truth of how far from equality we as women are in the U.S. There is a narrative of conventional monogamy that rears its ugly head. Sure, you might have some freedom to live in a mirage of independence if you are single. But step into a relationship, and society will project a million unspoken expectations of what is now expected of you as a girlfriend, and maybe eventually a wife.

You, as a woman in relationship, are no longer your own person.

In that first year, my sense of Self crumbled as I absorbed unspoken expectations of me: I was no longer allowed to model. I wasn’t allowed to have friendships with men. I wasn’t supposed to be naked. And I definitely wasn’t supposed to share my naked art with the world.

In short, my entire Self and my purpose was slowly erased. So slowly, that I didn’t notice until it was too late. When that relationship finally ended, it wasn’t just a romantic relationship I was grieving. The biggest source of grief was the loss of my Self. I didn’t even have me to fall back on when I was suddenly single.

Here’s the thing.

As a non-fiction writer who shares personal stories about life, there is a line to walk. I have spoken to writers who say that they always let someone read and approve a story that’s connected to them — even if it’s anonymous. I have spoken to others who say fuck it — it’s my life and I’ll share what I want so long as those referenced are anonymous.

My place is somewhere between the two, though I’m still figuring it out.

But let’s go back to these past scenarios of mine. There was nothing in what I shared that was about other people. No names, no talk of relationships.

No, it was all about me. (Selfish, I know.) My search for meaning. My grieving process. My hopes, my dreams, my doubts.

And, writing was my process to share, to create conversation with the world… to figure it out.

Writing was and is a process that, at its core, should be healing and helpful. But instead?

My sacred practice — both personally and professionally — became polluted with holding the insecurities of men. I had to filter what I wrote about through the lens of how people I didn’t even know would try to read between lines to invent something that wasn’t true. Simply because, for some reason, the men in question trusted someone else more than they trusted me. They couldn’t grasp that my life did not revolve around them in every possible way. They seemed to forget that before I was a partner, I am an individual.

But their insecurity made it about them. Suffocating my writing to take care of their feelings — negatively impacting my work, my mental health, and my ability to connect with the world.

My friends didn’t even read what I wrote. But, now I have friends that do. They read my words and get a peek inside my head, a place that people don’t get to see in-person.

They started showing up for me, because I started showing up for myself. Because I started to take myself, my work, my writing, my art… seriously.

Taking this pilgrimage to Sweden, to come back to myself, has been a gift.

Through it, I am relearning that if my creativity and dreams are a threat to others, then they are simply not my people.

The people pleaser in me (recovering, thank you very much) has been conditioned to fold myself around the dreams and lifestyles and pillars of others… rather than to stand strong in who I am, what I want, and what I stand for.

I’ve believed that in order to be loved, I have to be permeable. I have to be digestible. I have to filter my expression of Self through what makes others feel comfortable.

And meanwhile? I am the one who takes on the discomfort, and it’s not just something that sits on the surface like a prick to the skin. It’s soul-deep, rotting in my bones. That simply won’t do.

I must remember that the projections of others are not my responsibility. Why is it that I have chosen to carry their weight?

So, what would I write if I was not afraid?

Well, I supposed I would just simply write everything. I would write this. And I would keep writing, no matter what people think.

No longer afraid to be misunderstood.

No longer filtering my words to be digestible.

Now, over to you… Pull out your journal. Set a ten minute timer. What would you write if you weren’t afraid?