Who do I think I am. I am vulnerable.

Who do you think you are. No question mark, just a cold stop.  For every second that I pause with a response, the demand reverberates. Who do I think I am.







I guess it’s always been there.  That gnawing feeling inside of me that asks me who I think I am. In fact, the word ‘ask’ is too mild.  It’s more of a demand.  Who do you think you are.  

The other day I visited a book store to see the books on the shelf.  They were filled with people who I imagined could answer that question without pause.  They must be somebody after all. They are on the book shelf. Who do you think you are, the questioner questioned.

On December 16, I published my first book, “How to be a Pink Flamingo in a  Brown Duck Pond: Painting the sky.”  The royalty package that I chose is specifically designed not to incent book store buys, because of that question - who do I think I am. 

It’s been three weeks now since the book hit the online book store and to date one digital copy has been sold.  One copy.  And that terrifies me. It’s probably somebody I know, and worse yet - no feedback. Who do I think I am. 

I am vulnerable.  Over two years ago, I began writing this story for one reason:  to set it free.  The first chapter was titled “Who do I think I am?” because that is the question I imagined others would be sure to ask as well.  The first draft of the book told the whole story, or at least what I thought it was at the time.  Draft upon draft, I struggled with first person and third person.

Part of me wanted protection from this vulnerability, and other other part wanted to bravely step out and own my story and my vulnerability. I knew that if I could own it, I could set it free.  My first working title was ‘Standing up and Standing Out’.  It told the story of a moment in time where my vulnerability was truly exposed, and I was, for the first time in my life,  truly afraid.  It was, in fact, the day that the course of my life changed.

On the 29th draft, I pulled 200 pages of the book and replaced it with a different story. A story about the journey from there to here, from the beginning of my earliest recollection of the wind and Nirvana, into the Belly of the Great Whale,  and onto the precipice from which I fell from the sky and began to fade to white.

So this is it.  This is the story that I am able to tell right now. It’s not the whole story, but it’s as much vulnerability as I could muster.  That’s who I think I am.

http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000008291407/Lynn-Larson-Armstrong-How-to-be-a-Pink-Flamingo-in-a-Brown-Duck-Pond

Comments