Personal Essay

I’m Just Happy to Be Here

Intensity, insecurity, gratitude, and everything in between

Sometimes I get so lost in plumbing the depths of myself, for the sake of quality, that I forget the best things are not always the hardest.

That quality can come from the good and jovial stuff, that often gets pushed aside to make way for the searing vulnerability that can often feel like the only thing worth writing about.

I am intense. I don’t say that with any air of superiority, it’s just the truth. It’s part of my personality, unmoved by any form of therapy, medication, or sheer power of will. I try to be casual, cool, collected, and all the nifty “c” adjectives that fit here, but my intensity is always bubbling at the edges. Bursting through like the inevitability it is, I have begun to accept it, and welcome it to the party instead of withholding its invitation.

Many of my pieces showcase that loud and clear. All of my darkness tumbles out of me, causing me to have the sharpest of sleeves, and for so long I have felt bad about this, even embarrassed. That’s not the best way to get a conversation going, ya know?

Writing, though, writing makes room for that, it will even build an addition if you’d like. The place to get that out would have to be the page. So, here I am, ready and willing to pour it all out of me, and when that’s done, I’ll twist knots around myself to wring out some more.

After years of forbiddance in considering myself a writer, the simple truth is, I’m just happy to be here at all. I have written about my contentious relationship to my own creative dreams and pursuits plenty, but still, the light remains awfully dim in the words I use and my approach to it. I am here to say no matter what I’m writing, and how much of my mental guts may be hanging out, I am thrilled to be doing it in the first place.

Writing is a frozen cake. The one you tossed into the freezer after the birthday shindig and still keep hold of, because you know at some godforsaken late-night hour you’ll slump back over to the door and pull it out, then shut it to not think of it again until a month later. That’s how I was with writing for years and years.

I would walk away, come back for a few scribbles, then run away only to repeat this pattern ad infinitum. It’s a damn miracle I even made it to this site and am attempting to formulate this essay for you right now knowing all of that. Still, here I am, and it feels great. The sharing of it all has been the most surprising, and a classic case of me catastrophizing something that ended up not being so terrible.

What would people think of me? How many horrible comments would I get? Worst yet, would anyone even bother reading a single sentence?

All these insecurities, disguised as questions, plagued me to the point where I cast away all of my writing, never for anyone else to see but me, and even I would choose to abandon it most of the time. Stories agonized over, but never really told.

Now I find myself inside a grand playground with you all. Sliding through beautiful prose and see-sawing up and down between every piece that’s broken my heart or made it soar, oftentimes simultaneously. I have my gripes about the way things are run or the ultimate cyber demon — the algorithm, but at the end of the day, it just feels inspiring to be among it. My deadening passion now suddenly given me another life.

It’s easy to forget there is as much pleasure in creating as there is pain. I give myself to the latter far too much and this is my way of lifting the veil so my words can see the light of day, both emotionally and communally. I finally got to the place where I want to share my writing, those questions no longer bound by such insecurity. I can handle it now, I want to let you all in, because what is life without the company of others?

So, I fling off the shackles I imposed on myself, and am prepared to not only dwell in the blackened borders of my soul, but in sensing them brighten just by participating more fully in this frustrating endeavor we call writing. It feels good, right, and most importantly it feels like the time to do it. If not now, when was never a saying I bothered myself with. It was always the more pressing, “if not me, who,” because of a mind that never told me I was good enough to join the hurried races of those so fervently able to thrust their creations out into the world.

I am happy to be here, means so much in such a little sentence. I’m happy to still be writing, I’m happy to be on this platform with you all, I’m happy to read your works, I’m happy to finally see the clouds’ part and the shelf beneath me shift in sunnier, sturdier directions. I’m happy is not a sentiment I arrive at effortlessly, but as long as I’m tapping these letters out and they’re making some kind of sense, then yes, I’m happy to be here.

Happy to be existing in this infinitesimal moment at all.

A sampling of my other works, deep, cheery, and all that sits between can be found here, here, and here. Thank you.