Letting go of fear

We all have fears. Fear keeps us from running into a burning building, it keeps us from leaping off high cliffs and it can keep us from walking down a dark dangerous street late at night. There is nothing wrong with good honest fear.

But as I think to the time I began blogging, my fears surrounding the idea were substantial. I feared ‘strangers’ on the internet.

Haven’t we all been warned since the internet began? I feared sharing my strange desire for spanking with Nick. I certainly feared someone else would find out – my boss, my friends, my church, my in-laws, and of course my children. I was so careful I created a different identity, new email, new passwords for my computer. I even feared these things. Would I be in trouble (with whom I didn’t know) for creating this false identity. Probably some of the fear caused excitement and that wasn’t a totally bad thing.

Over the years I’ve watched these fears fade away almost to the point that I can’t remember what I feared in the first place. Would I have lost my teaching position if those at the education center had found out I wrote a spanko blog and eventually that I wrote books containing spanking and sex? I don’t know. Here in a southern small town, I guess I could have. Fighting it would have been embarrassing at the time. That fear could have been legitimate.

As the years went by I began telling my real life friends, they were great. Most were amused, and all seemed to have a live and let live attitude. As for the church, I remember asking here on the blog about what to tell the new minister the first time I met her. I asked, “Should I lead with the fact that I write sexy books, or that my son’s gay?” Turns out we discussed both the first day we met and she was totally fine with both things.

As for Nick’s family, no reason to fear there. I could be on the New York Times best seller list and make more money than EL James and they would never acknowledge it. These people, who are fine people even if they do piss me off, could ignore an elephant as big as a house in the room. Just as they ignore LJ and his marriage. To them gay marriage, as well as my books, don’t exist.

I did fear my children discovering ‘our secret’ before they were old enough to understand just how consensual it was. I couldn’t let them help me with my technology questions because I didn’t want them to see the spanking pictures I posted. But as they grew up, that last fear faded with their maturity. Both know what I write and both seem glad that it makes me happy. Mollie has never read one of my books, she says she doesn’t want to. But she has bought everyone when it came out to support me. I think that’s very sweet.

This weekend Mollie was home. She was cooking for a tailgate party she was going to and I, being the good mother, was in the kitchen pestering her and generally getting in her way. Exasperated she came out with an empty threat she heard often as a child, ‘If you don’t get out of here I’m going to get the paint stick.’ Then she added, ‘Never mind, you weirdo, you’d probably like it.’  I burst out laughing and she joined me. We’ve come a long way.

It’s been a long journey, letting go of these fears. It’s been a good journey. I’ve gained confidence in myself and lost the worry of what other’s think of me. I’m comfortable with who I am and what I do. That’s a wonderful feeling.