Fighting the Flow

Learning How to Let Go

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Photo courtesy of author

My daughter got into a fight at school yesterday.

At lunchtime, she was sitting with a boy when three girls started picking on her. According to my middle school-aged child, the teasing was relentless and she couldn’t ignore it anymore. She snapped and lunged at the lead mean girl, claws out. Following the incident, she shut down and was inconsolable.

We had a good talk when I got home from work, which ended in tears and a huge hug. This morning, however, she melted down at the thought of going to school. She claimed to be sick, but I knew better. Her anxiety was eating away at her insides.

She stayed home and so did I. Tomorrow is another day.

“Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.” — Sonia Ricotti

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I’ve been in one of those recurring funks regarding my writing. I’m crippled by the weight of imposter syndrome and feeling utterly and completely uninspired. Defeated. Unworthy.

All I’m doing is fighting against myself.

Like a teenage girl protecting herself against the hurtful words of others, I react in one of two ways: I freeze or fly into a self-destructive rage.

I’m not the young woman I once was. I’ve been through the traumas of life and walls have been built. As a writer, I keep myself partially hidden in the shadows. Instead of riding the tide, I keep one foot firmly planted behind the wall. The shadows are keeping me from being truly free as a writer.

What do I need to do to get to the point where I shout to the sky in pride, “Look at me! Look at what I wrote. It’s raw and it’s honest and I’m completely vulnerable.” And I take the chance of getting hurt even though I know, like all the other times, I’ll survive.

It isn’t just my writing. I hide from relationships in the same manner. The shadows consume me.

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When I was my daughter’s age, I decided to enter seventh grade as a new woman. My new school clothes were primo early 80s fashions, I began to wear makeup, and my hair was adequately feathered and frozen with the white and pink can of Aqua Net.

I also made over my personality.

I decided that Junior High was it. I was going to be popular. I was leaving the nerdy girl with good grades behind. I refused to wear my glasses, opting for roach clips and leg warmers instead.

My giggles became overly bubbly and loud. I embraced a new airheaded way of presenting myself. I wore heavy blue eyeshadow and chewed wads of Hubba Bubba. I was the poster girl for everything you can imagine or remember of that era.

It felt natural. It felt like I was going with my flow. This was the direction I wanted to be in. I would not be the butt of anyone’s joke anymore. But that wasn’t the case. I was swimming upstream. Soon, the kids called me ditzy. They called me “Spaz.” And they insisted that I didn’t have a brain in my bubble-headed body. Everything I masked and dressed up with lipstick led me right back to the same path.

I tried to lean into it. That first year I did. But then I spent the remainder of my school years trying to prove that I was smarter than everyone was giving me credit for, that I had talent, that I wasn’t so weird, and most of all, that I had worth.

I felt like an imposter in my own body, and I fought so hard against what was happening around me. But what would the right thing have been? I wanted to make myself over — I was growing up. I was finding my personality, my place.

Continuing to lean into it was the easiest path. But on the inside, a war was waged. I couldn’t stand my reputation and when my best friend — equally quirky — moved away to California in high school, I felt alone in my weirdness.

I wavered between believing the words and throwing stones at them. Clawing at them at the lunch table.

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I have a deep passion for writing. To let my words fly gives me such a feeling of accomplishment and pride. But the young girl trapped inside of me begins to worry that the positive feelings are just masking the truth. That I am weird, lacking talent, and unworthy. I’m a writer in disguise. A 1980s Valley girl in the shadows.

The thing with writing is that it comes from such a deep part of who we are. The stories, the words, the emotions between the lines are the very essence of our vulnerability. To bare that part of ourselves takes courage. That’s why accolades for what we produce mean so much. It’s validating to our very being.

It takes courage, strength, and discipline to go with the flow. To be in the moment. Trust the process. I suppose it’s natural to have peaks and valleys. We need to learn to not be so harsh on ourselves. Insecurity can be a powerful tool.

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I’m not exactly sure what the right thing is to advise my daughter in her situation. Which path is going with the flow? Standing up to the bully or walking away? Lunging at them can’t be right. And in my experience, arguing to deaf ears is merely a fight against yourself. There is ignoring and walking away, but what do you do if you are followed and the teasing doesn’t stop? Which one is right?

Maybe the hard part isn’t what you do at the moment. Maybe it’s what you do afterward. Maybe, just maybe, it’s how you process those emotions when all is said and done and how you channel your energy. That’s where the discipline comes in. Refine, reflect, and readapt.

We all have value. Worth. We are gifted with the ability to stand naked in front of others, painting the walls with our words. It doesn’t matter what someone says or doesn’t say, or what happens with our writing. It’s our legacy if even hidden a little bit in the shadows.

Sonia Ricotti said, “Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.”

Don’t lose yourself in what has happened. Embrace what will be and enjoy the flow. And trust that lurking in those shadows is a person capable of courage, compassion, and capacity for dancing into the spotlight.

We wrote. We write. We will conquer.