Checking fear at the door.

The funny thing about fear for me is there aren’t many things, I fear. Sure, I’m squeamish around lizards, frogs, babies or anything not fluffy that moves faster than I do. But, in all fairness that sounds a lot like just being smart to me as hairless things aren’t to be trusted. It made my parents nervous for years as I would walk alone late at night pretty much anywhere, talk to strangers and none of it really fazed me. But see, these are external things, and I don’t know if it is my autism, or if I am just backwards as the things I fear come from me. For example, I learned I was afraid of heights when my dad and I stood on top of their station wagon to put up my basketball hoop & I almost passed out. However, have some toothless carnie strap me on a fair ride and throw me upside down in the air 500 feet up and I will scream with glee. Now…ask me to take an idea of mine and run with it. I am not talking about something I have built or painted, I mean an idea or a concept that isn’t tangible. I mean something vulnerable, personal to me. This past year I have finally put the work into starting to build a foundation for actual self-worth, which turns out I made it 52 years without having cultivated or experienced within myself.

See the thing is, I used to confuse the concept of self-worth with cockiness or confidence. Easy to confuse them as they are often used interchangeably with some, which is a mistake. You see what I have finally come to terms with after looking them up in the dictionary and taking some long, awkward looks in the mirror, is you can act cocky and confident and get away with it for a long time. Hell, some people may even buy it. But self-worth I have come to understand isn’t playing a part or getting others to believe in you. It is believing that not only can you do something, but you deserve to feel good about doing it, you believe in YOU and that my friends have not been something I had ever experienced before this year. As my self-worth has gone from a tadpole like existence at the beginning of the year, she is getting feet now and walking around on her own. She, as in me, isn’t wondering anymore what others will think about my idea. I am learning to do what makes my heart twitter pate and if others like it, cool. If not, I find I don’t really care. I am realizing I do bring a lot to the table and although my style may have a niche group out there that will get it, I believe if I’m meant to then I will connect with those people and find joy in sharing my gifts with them.

I actually awoke yesterday with the epiphany that as I want to create a logo that resonates with what I am working towards, mainly getting certified as a life coach through the Jay Shetty Certification School, so I can focus on working with other neurodivergent women who are looking for the support they too crave to help become the women they wish to be and create the life that will bring them joy. Now using the word niche here is an understatement, because I don’t just mean women on the spectrum. I mean women on the spectrum who are artists, writers, mystics, quirky and are tired of society trying to force them into a generic existence that squashes their spirits and doesn’t recognize the beauty and joy they too bring the world. I want to work with the misfits and rebels who are so fucking exhausted from trying to “fit in” that they have had enough. The neurotypical world is too limiting for them. Too bland. Too restrictive. What does that look like for them? Who the fuck knows, but dammit I will consider it an honor to stand by their side as they figure out and are empowered to release their “muchness” into their lives and stop feeling shame for not fitting into that socially agreed upon norm. As I love old typewriters, it seemed so obvious once the dots connected. So I got online, found base image of a typewriter I liked and opened an adobe illustrator account and started to figure it out and ended up with the logo above, which I feel is a pretty fine one to start out.

Now for many this may sound mundane or like a duh moment, but for me, not just the concept, but sitting down and making the time to make it happen…HUGE moment for me. Because I wasn’t anxious. I wasn’t second guessing myself. I just did it. It wasn’t until I was done, I mean I even made one with a transparent background so I could use easily, that I realized what was missing.

Fear.

That old external foe of mine which has held me captive for too many years from moving forward on creativity I want to share with the world. It made me doubt that anyone would want to hear anything I have to say. I mean I didn’t go to college, I barely graduated from high school (by the skin of my teeth) and although I am both a licensed cosmetologist & massage therapist, those are tactile things. Sure, some books and knowledge, but more hands on which is how I learn the best. It is exactly what made me anxious to post my first piece in the blog as the beginning of a 30-day challenge knowing the typos could be staggering. My run on sentences page consuming. It also made me realize that part of what along with building self-worth, getting back into working on a computer and being inundated with so much AI bullshit also turned on the proverbial light bulb over my head. If AI promises to take anyone’s writing and make it seamless, then perhaps the window for my writing style had an opening. I am sure AI will enhance my life in a multitude of ways in the future, but for now I don’t want it anywhere near what I create.

Turns out in order for me to break up my relationship with my external fear, I had to realize that I enjoy how my brain works. I do have to give credit here as well to the fucking amazing author Jenny Lawson, whose book “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened” literally changed my life. Her writing style spoke not only my heart, but how my brain loves to hear stories told. My husband tells me he loves reading my writing because it’s like experiencing a stream of consciousness and that makes me feel so damn good. I am a 52-year-old autistic artist, one day to be coach and storyteller and I although I often say I am not for everybody and that is so true; there will be people that get me. For all the years I masked and played a role that helped me survive and feel like I sort of fit in, although I never really did, walking through my fear is turning out to be the most exciting ride so far. For the pure and simple reason that I am doing so in my voice, on my terms and I will never fucking apologize for it again.

Will fear rear its ugly self to me again? I absolutely hope so and I look forward to when it does. Like everything in life I have learned by experimentation and although I have no interest in mimicking others again to feel safe, the best part of experimentation is that it goes one of two ways. It works or it doesn’t. When it works…awesome. If it doesn’t? Well, perhaps that is even better because I have knocked one way out of the way and there are always better ways so I can try the next and the next and the next until one works for me. See that’s another thing about fear that you don’t believe until you walk through it and feel it, unless your fear is swimming with sharks with an open wound or something of the like (which and I cannot say this strongly enough - don't do that, you may actually die), odds are it won’t kill you. As a matter of fact, other than the occasional potential of embarrassment (I’ve survived plenty) you find out it feels pretty god damned good and you realize that fear was in fact not the beast behind the closet door, but in simply the reflection staring back ay you in the mirror.