“I am afraid of my own power” I’ve written it in my journal countless times, each time feeling like a failure more than the last. It’s a simple statement, yet so heavy.
When I think about “power” my whole body clenches. The thought that people could care about what I do, or even want me to be powerful is deeply disconcerting for me. I’ve sat across from people and noticed that they think I’m interesting and gotten scared. I tend to hyperventilate at the thought of anyone new liking me in any capacity, unless it’s at arm’s length. The fear is real, deep and debilitating.
The first time I remember writing it, I was maybe a freshman in college. I wrote it and it scared me. I had never been able to boil my fears down to a simple statement, I had never taken time to really get to the root.
It has stopped me from writing. Even now, I don’t quite understand what I write for. Is my writing powerful? Is it just another in the long sea of blogs and writing that will be glossed over? Or is it niche, where only a few weirdos like me will see it and identify with it.
In the past when I wrote, I was convinced my writing needed to tie itself up. Every moment in life should serve as symbolism to just pick myself back up again, but it doesn’t work like that. It never really did. So now I write with no true direction except to expose myself to community I’ve never explored. I write hoping that these quiet thoughts I have can find audience. I hope to engage with people deeper than I have before.
In a letter to Angela Davis, James Baldwin said “we live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal” and the great Audre Lorde says in a Litany for Survival “when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.”
So I speak.