I Am a Writer, and Other Things I am Trying to Believe

"Oh Wow. I look like myself."

I was the last to get my headshot completed that evening. I think that’s why she let me sneak a peak. Or probably she does this for everyone but I choose to think she saw me as special. As if she knew I needed some reassurance.

Could she tell I was nervous? Did she detect the doubt in my eyes, in my smile? I’m sure those fancy expensive camera lenses make great fraud detectors.

"Well good." She responded back to me. "That’s kind of the point. Your readers need to see you for you."

Who was she talking to? ME? Was she talking about my readers? That couldn’t be right.

//

At a 4 year old birthday party over the screams and echoes of the room not built for conversation "What do you do?"

On the medical form at the dental office in the middle of a game of 20 questions that don’t particularly seem dental hygienically related "Please list profession."

When the babysitter will be here any minute and I still haven’t finished making the mac n cheese (why do I always feel like I need to make the dinner for the babysitter? Isn’t this what I pay her for?!) and I still have to put on the other half of my eye makeup and with all my running around they start to sense my anxiety and start to riddle me with questions where are you going when will you be home what are we having for dinner is she bringing any toys for us does she know the bedtime song why do you have to go to a meeting anyway "What do you do?"

Even the children want to know.

What do you do?

What do I do?

What DO I do?

They all want to know. The random stranger. The electronic medical record. The offspring.

They all have the same question and it just feels so…rude.

But it’s not meant to be.

It’s meant to be curious.

It’s meant to give me a moment to share what makes me who I am. What matters to me.

So why do I have such a hard time with this?

When do I get to confidently answer this question without feeling doubt, shame, confusion?

I always wondered this answer. I guess I kind of figured I would know. It would be more obvious to me. Maybe there would be a W2 form involved or an HR department in the coming to terms with "what I do."

In this case, it was an online content creator who first asked to hear my voice.

I once heard the dear wise Shauna Niequist say "Pay attention to the tears." For it is in the tears that we know what truly matters.

The day I was asked to be a contributing writer at the Twin Cities Moms Blog, I cried. I knew then that this mattered to me. Not necessarily the writing opportunity, which it does, and I am so happy to be a part of a dedicated team of writers.

I think I cried out of some combination of relief and anxiety. Because it seemed like this was the time where I could now call myself a writer.

I’m listed on the website under contributing writer team. And I’m here at this gathering with the other writers talking about writing and getting our picture taken to be paired with our writing.

So why is it still so hard to say it, to believe it, to see it when the camera so clearly captures it, me, myself, I, the writer?

I am a writer.

Sounds easy enough to say. The photographer had no trouble with it.

And yet still I struggle.

When something is hard to say, we start with a whisper.

It is here, in this space, on this tiny little corner of the internet, where I get to try out this whisper.

I am a writer.

Ever so quietly. I said it. It feels odd, falling off the tongue. Odd yet familiar, if that can be a thing.

“Wow. That looks like me.”

I am a writer.

I am surprised by how it sounds, the way I am surprised at how I look behind the lens of a very good photographer.

But it wasn’t tonight when my writing career began, after signing a contract, meeting my fellow writing team, having a photographer capturing my image as "the writer."

The story of who I am, what I do, that began long before tonight.

And it continues even after I leave this room.

I am a writer.

It’s true. I am starting to believe this.

But other than the Internet byline, what does it mean to call myself a writer?

If I look closely at the small things that seem insignificant at the time and shape them together in front of me, the image reflected of me as the writer is quite striking.

I am a writer as I crawl out of bed before the sun is up on a Saturday morning to sneak in writing time at a coffee shop.

When I keep running documents on my notes app while sitting at the park or the museum or the waiting room at the doctor’s office.

I am a writer when I choose nap time to write when all I want to do is nap.

Or choose to nap when all I wish I had the energy for was to write.

As I stare at a computer screen, empty white page and cursor blinking like a nagging mosquito in my ear. WRITE. WRITE. WRITE.

When I make up excuses to actually sit down and get the work done and then discovering once I do succumb to it, the words flow easier than I expected.

Or spend hours on a piece of writing that only takes 3 minutes for someone to read.

Or devote time and anguish and the entirety of my heart to an essay that no one reads at all.

I am a writer.

With that contagious feeling when someone tells me that they relate to my words, they value my talent, they want to read more.

With the rush of a well crafted sentence.

In the reading of previous work and being surprised that I am the author.

In capturing through written words what my heart cannot speak. A process in learning about what matters to me most.

Crying so hard that I can’t see the screen while the fingers continue to move. Because they want to, they need to, they must keep writing.

A therapy session, creativity feed and drudging to-do list all at the same.

I am a writer.

When I hold a sleeping baby in one arm and tap words with the other into my phone.

While the computer sits open on the floor with a toddler playing trains next to me.

As I write in my head when I can’t write it on paper.

Gathering my thoughts on walks or runs, in the shower or while cooking, in the early morning fog when I am too tired to sit up but my mind is slowly opening to the inspiration of the day.

In the wrestling with an idea with a jumble of mixed up words until suddenly something snaps together, as I rush furiously to pen, paper, crayon, phone, anything to not let this idea slip from the recesses of my brain.

While begging them to wait just one more minute so I can finish this sentence before reading Elephant and Piggie or refill their milk or find their shoes.

When I remind them that I am doing work because I AM doing work because writing is work even when I don’t yet believe this myself.

I am a writer.

While distracted over and over and over again by my phone, the birds outside, the whines from downstairs, my phone, my spouse, the dinner that needs to be prepared, did I mention my phone?

I am a writer.

When I send in an article and get a yes.

When I send in an article and get a no.

When I don’t let the no define me. And then getting back to work again.

I am a writer.

In the telling of my partner “I am a writer” and having him understand how this matters.

In the telling of my family, my friends, the people who know me and the people I have not yet met, "I am a writer."

In the telling of my children "I am a writer" and then hearing them tell others.

I am a writer.

As I come back again and again to the computer and the keys, the pen and the paper, the words that become sentences that become paragraphs that become stories.

I discover each day what it means to be a writer.

It means the next time I am asked what I do, I will say a bit more confidently "I am a writer."

And I will believe this to be true.

For it always has been true, I just needed to look into the photograph and see myself as exactly me.