Today is June 13—a Thursday—and exactly 38 years ago June 13^th was a Saturday. I know this because I was born four days later, on June 17^th—a Wednesday. I imagine that back then, my Mom and Dad were discussing the fact that I was already 10 days past my due date. I also imagine that they were using soft blankets and sheets to line a dresser drawer in the walk-in closet in our apartment near the hospital where my Dad was doing his residency. Without money for a crib, my sleeping destination was a drawer.
 
I’m thinking all these thoughts, and many more thoughts, right now as I fly in a Delta Air Lines plane going hundreds of miles per hour over the earth heading from my home in California to Michigan to see my family and celebrate my Mom’s retirement after 34 years as a middle-school teacher. Right now, as a 37-nearly-38-year-old woman, I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude. I have a loving husband sitting next to me watching Creed II, while drinking water and eating Cheeze-Its, with a level of intensity I exclusively reserve for watching reruns of Sex and the City with a glass of wine and handful of chocolate. I have a family excited to see both of us, I have a dog safely at her beach house (her sitter lives near the beach; I’m very much hoping to come back as her in a future life), and many more things, namely that I am alive. I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for that.
 
Sharing all of these random thoughts is really just me procrastinating telling you what is really going on with me, what I'm really feeling - which is a big fat ball of fear. I have fear wondering what this newsletter is going to be. Fear because my ego has been having a field day since late May when I released a signup page to the public and got a slew of new followers (hello and welcome, new peeps!).
 
I’m thrilled that my writing is landing in the inboxes of dozens more humans, and with that thrill is a booming voice telling me I better make every newsletter perfect forever and oh my God nothing will ever be good enough and the truth is I have no idea what I’m doing and so on and so on into infinity.
 
So that’s fun. Welcome to a tiny slice of my internal monologue.
 
I’m also wondering if every other person who ever puts anything out into the world feels the same way. According to all the creativity books I read, every person, in fact, does. Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, says they do. He calls this fear “resistance” and explains it beautifully in an episode of Oprah’s SuperSoul podcast. He explains that this resistance isn’t actually us, but a force outside of ourselves. That if we look at it in that way, it isn’t as scary.
 
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, many other fabulous books and my favorite podcast Magic Lessons, talks about this fear voice all the time. She’s gotten very familiar and friendly with that voice, and as part of her creative process, now has conversations with it. She tells that voice that she loves it, that it will always have a place in her life, and that on the road trip that is her life she will always save a seat in the car for that voice. The voice’s seat is in the back, because, importantly, it isn’t allowed to get behind the wheel. And that that voice it is welcome to spend the entire trip (HER WHOLE LIFE) screaming from the back seat at full pitch. She welcomes this. As long as it isn’t in the driver’s seat, she’s good.
 
I find this visual deep comforting. It’s safe to say my fear voice is screaming at top pitch in the back seat at the moment.
 
I know Elizabeth thinks this way because I just came off a full week of Liz Gilbert overload. She just released a new book, City of Girls, which is about showgirls in 1940s New York City, and it is supposed to be fucking amazing. Incredible reviews. Joyful, filled with unapologetic sex, Oprah calls it a “wild and fun romp for the summer.” I’m very much looking forward to reading it, and am #112 out of #126 on the waiting list at my library.
 
As part of the press for her book, she’s doing a slew of in-person events and podcast interviews. I’ve heard her on Marie Forleo’s show, Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert and, yesterday, on Oprah’s SuperSoul. The latter show made me scream in my ACTUAL car and pause the recording no less than five times because I was freaking out so much, as I was driving Lucy to her beach house.
 
Why?
 
Because she showed me a level of vulnerability I had never seen before. Ever. Like, here I am writing a newsletter about vulnerability and joy and pain, and yes I write about all of those things but NEVER have I heard the kind of truth that was coming out of her mouth. Elizabeth spoke, in detail, about the death of her partner Rayya, who passed in early 2018 of cancer.
 
She talked about the process of Rayya’s death, that Rayya left the world in a difficult way, that Elizabeth ran to her bedside in an effort to be the best caregiver in the world, and that she failed at it. Failed. That Elizabeth instead got frustrated with Rayya on the regular, that she couldn’t handle it nearly daily. That she was overcome with her own grief. That, when Elizabeth was drowning in caregiving and grief and frustration at dealing with a “very difficult patient” (her words), she turned to two women for help. Those women, amazingly, were Rayya’s ex-wife and ex-girlfriend, who somehow jumped through an ego loophole in the universe (my interpretation) to be by her side and take care of ELIZABETH.
 
Elizabeth explained that every caregiver needs a caregiver. I had to pause it there. It was so intense and real and resonated with me personally. I turned the recording back on and then heard that, following Rayya’s death, she and Rayya’s ex-wife made good on their promise never to leave Rayya’s side—even in death—and went to the warehouse where she was to be cremated. They asked the official to leave the door open and they watched Rayya burn.
 
“WHAT THE FUCK?!?!” I yelled to no one in my car as I was driving down U.S. 101 (except Lucy who was sleeping in the backseat and didn’t care).
 
I paused it again and drove in silence. My heart was pounding; the images she was describing were a lot for me to handle. My already-over-active imagination was on hyper-drive with her very real descriptors. My mind raced: Is that kind of vulnerability really allowed? Is it OK to tell the world—she was talking to Oprah, so we are talking about the WORLD here—these kinds of personal details?
 
I dropped Lucy off and turned the recording back on. To her credit, Oprah was a little freaked out, too. She said as much (respectfully). I finished the podcast and drove back to San Francisco in silence, the whole time feeling like listening to that interview was a step in the direction of being even more vulnerable in my own life. By showing up with her truth and authenticity, Elizabeth Gilbert had extended me a permission slip to do the same. It felt like a stretch—like something I now can't turn my back on because I know there is someone in the world who lives this way which means I can live this way, too.
 
This past month has tested me in the vulnerability department. I’ve had hard—sometimes very hard—conversations with close people in my life. Conversations about boundaries. Conversations about fears. Conversations about sadness. I’ve apologized. I’ve asked for forgiveness. I’ve been told that I’m not always “emotionally safe” to be around when I’m mad (that mic drop was a REALLY EASY pill to swallow, let me tell ya!). I’ve had to tell loved ones that I can’t be there for them under every circumstance because it isn’t always good for me.
 
This shit is hard and I hate being this vulnerable—hate it. But I also know that I must live this way to be my true self. After a particularly difficult conversation, I started feeling sick. Physically sick. Yes, it could have been related to travel and I may have walked by a neighbor who sneezed in my face or another person waiting in line at the coffee shop could have been getting over pneumonia, but I also think my body was reacting to mental stress. I’m feeling a little better today, but there is still some stickiness in my chest. I wonder if it has to do with me needing to speak my truth more. I wonder about those physical manifestations of external forces and how they are often internalized into our bodies.
 
Back to this newsletter. My fear voice is still screaming in the backseat, but not as loudly as before. She isn’t in the driver’s seat. My deep, wise voice is anchored in the driver’s seat. And while that wise voice is often kicked in the head by the asshole in the back, I’ve put superglue under her ass to make she doesn’t move. And never moves, so I can continue to write this newsletter and tell my truth and be vulnerable and share all the things and feel safe and feel healthy. This is my practice of health, screaming voices and all.
 
I’ll leave you with three things. The first is a quote from Grace Kraaijvanger, one of my favorite humans and founder of The Hivery, the co-working space in Mill Valley that has been a huge part of my life for the past 2.5 years.
 
“You are like a unique strand of DNA. You bring experience, knowledge, wisdom, and passion in your package. No one else has what you have. I won’t ask you; I will demand of you. If you don’t let it out, the world will not get it. You are truly the only one. Step into your boldness. I believe we are artists of this life. We get to be creative, start over, make mistakes, and change mediums. Each of you is a masterpiece.”

The second is a quote from author Neil Gaiman. It helps calm the fears inside me:

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something." 

And the last is this poem, lifted from the gorgeous book Musings From The Moon (check out Jenna’s—the author—Instagram)

   

Very important disclaimer: I am *still* in the “delicate flower” phase of this newsletter, so I would like to request zero feedback - Z.E.R.O. - other than overtly positive comments (i.e. “love it, Katie!” “this is awesome!”). I may want constructive feedback on this project at some point, but today is not that point. Thanks for understanding and respecting the delicate flower inside me.