Everybody fears that they’re not enough.  Everybody.

My father used to say that intimacy breeds contempt.  This was his favorite motto, something he repeated every day

So, I grew up believing that if someone got the chance to know the real me, they would hate my guts.

I worried that if they dug an inch too deep beneath my cheery surface, they would discover the ugly truth: that, somehow, I didn’t measure up.

When you worry about people accepting you, you spend an awful lot of time and energy covering up your character flaws like cat shit in a litter box.  After a while you start disowning those parts of yourself, and you lose integrity, wholeness.

Not so great if what you crave, more than anything, is intimacy.

Not so great if you’re a writer who needs to reveal herself on the page in order to drive home an important point.

It’s taken a lot of years for me to own many of my idiosyncrasies.

If you’d like to read how a 55-year-old adult blames her parents for most of them, click here.

In the interest of time and space, here is a short list of some of my most egregious flaws:

1.  I’m incredibly intense.  Member this guy?

Well, it’s like that.

2. I’m defensive.  If you give me any kind of negative feedback or guff, I brood about it for days on end and fantasize about ways to get even.  You know, sugar in your gas tank, Molotov cocktails through your picture window, that sort of thing.

3. I’m cheap.  I need to be sedated in order to part with cash.  Somewhat problematic when you know for a fact that people will only invest in you to the extent you’re willing to invest in yourself.

4. I’m about as sentimental as a door stop.  For our 5th anniversary I gave Walt compression socks.

5.  My dog Ed was far more spiritual than I am.

I also swear like a sailor, have an aggressive sense of humor, leave my dirty underwear all over the bedroom floor, and whine when I’m tired. I’m a major approval whore. I’m impatient, oblivious, judgmental, and self-obsessed.

But enough about me.

Wait!  If you’d like to read what I love about myself, click here.

Now, let me ask you this question.  What’s the worst thing someone could accuse you of?  What shit would it stir up if they called you selfish? Stupid? Weak, incompetent, ordinary, a loser, a fake, or lazy?

To what lengths would you go to prove that you are anything but that one horrid thing? How do you overcompensate just to throw folks off the scent?

Don’t ask me why (I just blame my parents) but I’d flip out if anybody considered me lazy.

Let me tell you what I do, simply because I’m terrified that it’s true.

I hide when I need to take a nap. I take scuba diving lessons instead of laying on the beach.  I create to do lists even in my sleep. I resist sitting down if someone else is working. I offer to help even when I’m exhausted. I run twenty miles and then carry on with my day when what I really want to do is lay the fuck down. And the lists goes on. And on. And on.

I exert a lot of energy trying to prove that I’m Lance Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey all rolled up into one.  But of course I unconsciously set things up so that I can’t possibly feel like I’ve kicked ass and taken names.  At the end of the day, I lay down and think–let’s see if you can guess–that I’m lazier than dirt.

This, by the way, doesn’t feel good.

So now back to you.

Just kidding. (Remember that self-obsessed thing?)

Here’s what Rhonda Britton says on the matter:

When you can’t bear to be thought of a certain way, it triggers reactions and self-destructive behaviors that become a way of life….  Ultimately, the thought you are trying to avoid is the same thought that must be embraced in order for the fear to lose its power.

Now, I’ve been told that I’m really wordy (what do they know?!), and that my blog posts require way too much time to get through (now where’d I put that gasoline can?), so I’m going to make this short and sweet. For today. Because we’re going to get back to this topic. So happens, it’s the very stuff that gets in the way when you write books and realize that people are suddenly going to recognize you for the (insert worst flaw) you really are. (And in that moment, you turn to the internet and begin your year-long search of the perfect white cake recipe.)

We’re all trying to cover up our unlovable, despicable, character flaws. And we go about this in some astoundingly stupid ways.

But, here’s the thing.

None of us is perfect.

We are complex, interesting, frustrating human beings who are just doing our level best.

So, maybe you just need to have a sense of humor about the whole thing.

Maybe you should just admit that you’re not Wonder Woman, or Superman.

That way you can relax about what a flawed piece of shit you are.

And you can let someone in.  And compare notes.  And shake your head and laugh about the dirty underwear. And love yourself, and them, just the way you/they are.