Publishing...

It is a balancing act between holding on and letting go.  Every single day when I write this, there is this thin thread of backstory in my mind, “don’t put that out there, don’t share THAT!”  But I still hit publish every day.  It is like publishing has become this thing that I do when I have held the thought, the idea, the belief, the fear, the pain, the anguish, the love, the peace, the hurt for as long as I can (sometimes decades, sometimes minutes) and now, finally, the time has come to let it go. To hit publish and release whatever it is to wherever and whomever it flows to.

Some days my fingers hover above the publish button. Sometimes I barely think about it.  It honestly depends on how deeply I have written and how much I do not really want to share what I just put down into the printed word.  Some days I think about the reactions all day, and more often, I just appreciate being unburdened and go about my life.

This fall I will finally let go of the beginning of my story.  I go back all the time to the late teens and early adulthood, all the way up unto the here and now.  But I rarely talk about the beginning.  Mostly because I haven’t had the words, or more honestly, I haven’t wanted or been able to share those words.  They were too terrible, they were too hard, they almost killed me several times over.  But the book is written, now there is the rewriting, and the editing.  But soon, the publishing will come and that is going to be another thing altogether.  I have never asked myself to let go of something I have held onto for so long...

It is terrifying.  It is exhilarating.  It is something I have never done before...released something held so deeply, so personally, so painfully.

There are days when I think, “well, maybe you do not need to put that out there.”  And then are days when I think, “if I don’t get it out there, it might undo me again.”  But mostly, I think of publishing because I want to help others who struggle.  I want to show, specifically, exactly how I struggled, how I survived and then how I turned those into thriving.  I love my life today.  I even love myself which was a much harder task.  And I have healed so very much in my lifetime. I should be dead twenty times over.  But not only am I not dead, I am very much alive, living this most amazing life...

Putting yourself out there in the world is never easy.  Wearing your authentic skin and allowing people into your interior is also hard.  But it is worth the pain, the loss, the effort and the fear.  Because living in your authenticity, in your truth, allows you to live your best life.  For your life to become 100% your own, and then, if you are lucky, you get to share that life with others.  And that is what the publishing is all about...publishing is what I do to claim the life that is mine while sharing it with you.  Which shall always be that delicate balance of holding on and letting go...each and every single time I push “publish” I let go of that which existed just previously only in my mind and I create an opportunity to connect with others, which erodes the long held belief that I can ever be connected to others by practicing disconnection.

Again, still...