Finnian Burnett

Wasn’t it just a few days ago that I wrote something about learning the futility of getting myself all worked up and anxious about something because it is never as bad as it seems? Yeah. I wish I could take my own advice.

I have my author appearance tomorrow at the LGBT community center where I will read a couple of pages, talk about myself a little bit, engage the audience, and try to get them to like me so they buy my book.

Frankly, I’m terrified. I don’t know why. I told my day job boss about it and she asked, “What’s the worst that can happen? They hate you?” Um, yeah! “Who cares?” she said. Who cares? I do. I do, for some reason. Is that a sickness, wanting to be universally liked?

The strange thing is that when I meet people who are strongly racist or ridiculously assholic or whatever, I don’t care about whether or not they like me. In fact, I prefer for them not to like me. And I’m usually proud to be disliked for things like my feminism or my liberal views or my queerity, because I am confident of those things and if someone has a problem with them. screw them!

It’s when it comes to the things I am a bit less secure about that the anxiety sets in. My writing is so important to me and sometimes I feel as if I am balancing on a string trying to make it my life’s work. I want people to like my writing. More importantly, when I am marketing myself as a writer, I want them to like me. I don’t want them to think that I’m a phony. I don’t want them to wonder why this woman is up there speaking to them as if she knows what she is talking about.

So here I sit today with a little knot of anxiety in my gut about an event that isn’t even happening for 28 hours and no amount of common sense coaching is making it go away. Still, the good news is that once I do this appearance and it is *not* as terrible as I have psyched myself up to think it will be, I will have YET ANOTHER lesson slammed into my face about the futility of worrying about things I can’t control. Maybe this time it will sink in.