Jumping Jitters

Charlotte York: I could never! I have the most terrible fear of heights. 

Carrie Bradshaw: Well, I do not. You've seen my shoes.

So I’ve been mulling over what the heck I would write about in my first blog post for nearly a week now. I’ve never blogged before, what would I write about? Who was going to read it? What small piece of my mind would be unleashed on the World Wide Web for all to read? The thought of anything I say being electronically etched in stone is quite daunting. 
     

     

I’ve always heard that the best trick for writers is to write what you know. So was I supposed to write about not knowing what to write about? Oh boy. I quickly concluded that nobody wanted to listen to me whine about words, or lack there of, so I called my mom. 
          

         

My mother, the smartest, sweetest, craziest woman I’ve ever known who always knows just what to say. “Well Catherine,” she said, “What are you so afraid of? Just go get it over with, nobody’s paying attention to you anyways!” 
         

There's nothing more intimidating for a new blogger than a blank screen and a keyboard! 

OK, I know it sounds bad, but it’s true! She always used to tell me this when I was nervous about something I was wearing or even going to the gym. “Get over it, everyone’s to busy making sure their own shirt is tucked in to even notice if you wore the right kind of shoes!” 
                   

And that’s when it all came together for me. What was I so afraid of? Why was I so hesitant? Was I afraid of being bad? Was I afraid of being good? Fear is a funny thing in that way, you know you feel it, but you never know why.  
          

It reminded me of an episode of Sex and the City (you will quickly learn that just about everything reminds me of SATC…) where Carrie has to go bungee jumping as research for a column. She tries twice to jump. She freezes up and quits. The third time she finally jumps, she misses the trapeze and falls onto a massive trampoline. And then the laughter begins. 
 

         

     

She fell! The worst thing that could have happened, did happen. And she survived! I realized that once you face it, whatever it may be, the worst is never really as bad as you thought it would be. So, I thought to myself, if the fear of whatever isn’t going to go away, I’m going to have to figure out how to “get over it” and run with it, or in this case, write with it.