As I reflect on the goals that I had set for this year, there is this one goal that I just can’t achieve, and that is writing my book. I guess I have already satisfied that goal by the actual writing of it. But to sit down and rewrite it so that it can be edited, that is where I stumble. I just don’t have any desire to edit it. While the writing was hard at times, I found the writing of some deeply private details very therapeutic and freeing. Now, as I go back and edit, I just don’t have any desire to finish, I am past that part of my life now. Or am I?
It is this struggle of actually releasing the book that has me in confusion. Am I avoiding it because of idle threats made to me if I did? Am I avoiding not editing it because I am scared of what may happen if I do release the book? Am I avoiding it because I don’t believe that everyone needs to know what happened to me? Am I not interested because I have already lived the story, I did the work, and now I am healed? Will releasing these private details of my life will not bring me any value to my life? Maybe it is all of that? I may have spent way too much time overthinking about this, but it is important that I find out my why.
When we are faced with a great challenge, we sometimes need to take a step back and determine if we are allowing fear to dictate our direction. There have been many times in my life where I would back down from a challenge because my fear pushed me away. I wouldn’t admit my fear though, no, I would make excuses and deflect the blame. Over time I became a master of excuse, and this horribly debilitating habit lead me to miss many opportunities that I would later regret.
After a lot of reflection, I realize that this time around I am not fearful of releasing my story in a book. Aside from the sick details of the nights my abuse happened, I have already shared a lot of the details of my journey through this blog. I have stood in front of 200 people in a dark auditorium and did a TEDx talk on my journey. What I am missing is the purpose -my why.
One could say “just release the book and see what happens!”, This is very true, but why do things just for the sake of doing them? Releasing some very dark personal details of my life is not something I can just do on a whim. I need a purpose. I had a purpose of writing the book, and it was to heal me, but now that I am for the most part healed, I have no purpose in releasing it. Until I find that new purpose, my book and my story of childhood sexual abuse will remain my own. I still feel I have a lot more life to live and stories to share. So in the meantime… long story short, I survived!