On Being Scared—and Doing It Anyway

or: the time I almost cried walking into Reba's cookbook photo team

Me + the Reactor Media team + HarperCollins team in Nashville (oh and, you know, the cover :) )

This is one of those days when I’m sitting at my computer, and I don’t quite know what to say.

I know, so helpful for a writer.

But try as I might, I can’t quite capture what I want to say—not all the way. Because how do you describe the way it feels to walk into a situation where your palms are sweaty and your voice is shaky and your brain is being peppered by a thousand doubts about what you’re about to do, because you are not the person who’s supposed to do this thing and everyone will know you’re a fraud . . . yet you catch your breath and swallow the lump in your throat and walk through the doors and do the thing anyway? Even while your heart is quite literally beating out of your chest. 😅

How do you talk about that kind of experience without tearing up with relief that it’s over—and also sort of happy crying about how it it went better than you could have ever expected?

How do you write about being proud of yourself for doing something that made you feel so uncomfortable?

But more importantly, how do you capture your overflowing gratitude for the human beings who took you by the sweaty hand and were so kind to you, all while you were busy telling yourself you were an imposter and they were going to make fun of you for not being good enough? How do you thank those people who smiled at you and listened to you and made you feel like your ideas were valued, even when you convinced yourself those same ideas were stupid and dumb and no one would care about them? They weren’t creative enough or brilliant enough? That you weren’t creative enough or brilliant enough?

One week after the first photoshoot for my cookbook (LOLOLOL I know, I will never get over it), I’m still asking myself those questions.