I feel hollow.

Thursday is the day.

The day I have to hand out twenty-two copies of my heart to a class of editing sharks.

And I'm FREAKIN out.

Because it's one of those things that Dr. Sinor says "Just comes from the gut!" "Write about things you'd never share!" she says. And I just cringe a little bit in my seat because I'm trying. I'm trying so hard to write about things I wouldn't dare share. I'm trying to be brave. And this is a big thing for me, you know, a big thing. Because it's going to be workshopped next Tuesday while I'm in the room, not saying a word. It's going to be so big that I'll probably sweat a little as I know what I've written and what I've handed out to my peers.

But this is learning, you see. And growing. And developing. And figuring out how to get into the crawl spaces of dreams--the places that'll never make sense.

And I've chosen to write mine about the circle-line-dot theory and what that means to the way nobody ever wants me. With guest appearances by Makenzie MacGillavray, who, in the sixth grade, I hated so much because she was good at soccer. And more guest appearances by the little curly-haired girl who sat on her dad's lap a row ahead of us when Luke and I went to the string quartet last week. And the way I envied her. Guest appearances by Klimt's The Kiss and how I've always felt like it was a lie.

This lyric essay is basically organized chaos, which is basically everything I have ever been. And now I've got to share these bricks that have been sitting in my stomach-pit for years. Not only do I have to share them, but I have to sit in a stale classroom while a group of twenty-two intellectuals, brilliant writers, picks apart the language of my gut and tells me how to change it.

I've never been so nervous in my life.




P.S.
This blog post just got real. So, I'd like to leave you with the fun-fact that my creepy little neighbor has recently become our resident stalker, so we call him "Joe Fusco Jr." because there's really no other way to describe him. Today, he knocked in pattern on the front door, and when I opened it, he handed me a 12-pack of Activia, yes, Activia, and said, "Found this at work and thought of you girls." And what's even funnier is that his name was on the plastic wrap around it. Which meant that 1) he didn't get it from "work" and 2) he took it straight from his refrigerator where it would make sense that his name would be on it. I mean, I could barely contain myself. Yogurt has always been a surefire way to my heart.