A Letter to Doubt

Dear Doubt ~

It has been remarkable, your absence from this process ~ from my process of creation and re-creation. I am both comforted and scared to note that you have arrived, finally, with all the subtlety of a jackhammer on tissue paper. With your glorious flourishes intact. And yet, with all the power you command, you seem to revel in your ability to wreak havoc with simple, rolled eyes, condescending lips, nostrils flared from luxuriously slow, disapproving inhales. As if I'm not even worth the full force of your arsenal. You let me know that I am still very much Me and that a single round with you can render me immobile, sometimes for prolonged stretches. The true wonder of this moment lies not in your presence, but merely in your tardiness. Where have you been? And how did I get waist deep into this before the lecturing began?

You swoop in and demand attention and create a scene. You whisper in my ear, gleefully confirming my fears. You tell me the truth. And that, Doubt, is your single greatest power ~ the source from which all your strength flows ~ creating in me the feeling that yours is the only voice speaking truth! You cast yourself as the singular voice of reason and with a dismissive wave of your hand render everything positive silly. Immature. Infantile. Ridiculous. You, Doubt, are indeed the Devil.

So here you are. And here I am. And you have supplanted my instincts ~ taken them over and demanded that Instinct become Doubt. How am I to know when you have been dispatched on behalf of my own self-preservation and when your purpose is merely to suffocate?

I don't. I guess I don't.

But here, Doubt, is the thing you may not know. I've seen my fair share of fears becoming reality. And I survived. I survived disappointment. I survived failure. I survived having my very definition of myself taken from me. It sucked. There was not even one remotely pleasant moment about it. It was profoundly embarrassing and painful. But I survived. And so the truth is that while you still scare the shit out of me, I do not feel quite as compelled to bow to your whims as I used to. What are you going to do to me exactly? Anything that hasn't already been done? I survived.

Perhaps one of the perks of age is the weathering of disappointments and lost dreams. It's not so much that my fears have disappeared, they've just dissipated a little. I find them less paralyzing than I used to. Who knew failure carried with it a certain freedom? Who knew heartbreak came with a Free Gift With Purchase?

So Doubt, the questions aren't: What is your purpose here? or Do you scare me? The questions are, simply: How much of your advice will I heed? Will I allow you to define yourself as Common Sense? Will I allow you to paralyze me in order to avoid a possible hurt and that ever-present playground fear of being made fun of?

To that I take a deep breath, puff out my feathers and say:

I'm 40. Fuck you.

Sincerely, Ian