I’ve been writing this story for a long time and haven’t published it for a number of reasons – life changes, emotional roadblocks, perfectionism, and mostly because of fear.
Fear.
I’ve been afraid of my work getting poached or stolen (it’s now officially copyrighted so I can rest easy there), worried it would offend someone, scared it would be shredded, that it wasn’t good enough, stupid, ew, and many other reasons. There is another big reason I didn’t put it out there until now, and that’s a post for a different time. It’s drafted, that post, but I have to gather up the courage to drop that one. Maybe this weekend…
I wasn’t always this much of a fraidy cat, not when I was younger. I think the older I’ve gotten and the more negative experiences I have had heightened this fear. Which, I admit, is highly irrational.
For instance, people think I’m a germaphobe because I don’t like people wearing their shoes inside my apartment, and because I freak out over a dirty kitchen.
I actually have reasons why those have now become rules:
The shoe thing I had to instill because a maintenance man at another apartment complex where I lived had dog poop on his shoe and came into my apartment, and tracked the poop EVERYWHERE. In EVERY ROOM. He stepped on artwork I had scattered on the floor that of course got poopied and ruined. It was so bad, I ended up having to get my carpet cleaned.
So, the shoe thing is to prevent that from happening again.
The kitchen thing is because I am deathly afraid of slippers, and food draws skippies, and I don’t want skippies.
A skippy is my word for a roach, by the way. That’s a post for later.
When I was in college, I lived in an apartment that became infested with skippies, and the manager refused to treat it. He kept saying every time he went in there, there were no roaches. It was awful. We couldn’t keep anything on the counter, we had to clean right then and there, it was a constant struggle.
So that’s where the cleaning of the kitchen and not leaving crumbs everywhere comes from.
Naturally, the hesitation to put my stuff out there comes from something more specific as well. Past incidents, comments, criticisms, but….pfffftttr whatever, I’m gonna do what I want.
I mean, we can’t let fear control us, right?
Also, Skippies can go straight to hell.