Using my hardships, strengths and gifts with gratitude and responsibility

I wrote to a friend....
I shared what I was going through...
I explained it in my "wild-thought" way...
Because I was feeling...really really feeling it
and I was low...really really down there
I was on my case...sitting
all my weight pushing down
on a suitcase full of "why me?"s
self-defeating distorted thinking busting out
I sat on the case...
trying to close the zippers of "It's too much!"

My friend..she's always trying to encourage me
to believe things about me that I just don't want to believe
My writing, my art...gifts she points out in me..
All things I'm scared to say "yes" to.
So...I hold those things tightly...
unless I truly truly trust someone.
Even then, though, I don't trust their response

But...in my desperate moments...I write to those I trust.
and finally...this last time
my friend shoved me off the suitcase and said,

"Teresa, i honest to pete think you have talent oozing out of you
and i honest to pete think it would help a ton of people if
you wrote.

gonna say something harshly loving.
you taught me that was okay......

maybe you need to get out of your fear and out of your self and
offer what you've got. maybe you need to see it cause the world
needs it.

you have a writing gift.
maybe it's really selfish not to see that...........
and maybe that's somethign to look at."

Well.."thank you" I said...still doubting myself
Still not believing...thinking she just wants to make me feel better

BUT...that got me thinking...

I keep this blog private.
Only a handful of people know about it
and even with them..I don't encourage their coming here.

I keep my art "private"
Holly and I worked a lot on being proud of it.
I am...and I put it up...framed..in my house
but I don't believe I have more in me
I believe it was just a fluke

But...this email..harsh, loving or not,
It got me thinking about my responsibility
I'm so scared to be rejected..
I'm so scared that other people WON'T understand it
That they WON'T relate..or want it.
I'm scared to expose the secrets that others don't know
To talk about things..past and present..
Stories that might make people I love angry or sad

So...how do I know...
how do I trust...
This is way too scary...
I'm not sure I'm ready
But maybe it's not my choice
Maybe other girls NEED it...