No fear. Is there such a thing?

Every time I read Penelope Trunk, I get one-ounce more empowered with some of the ideas that I have for writing.

And that’s simultaneously awesome and frustrating. Because basically I want to be Penelope Trunk. Well. OK, not literally. But I aspire to be the woman writing fearlessly so as to inspire other women to lead fearless lives.

Problem: I am not fearless.

When an idea comes to mind and I think, “Oh, I should write about that,” depending on the subject matter, the next immediate thought is, “What if Dad read it?” followed by an unending list of names: or Tony, or Sean, or Scott, or Ryan, or Ryan…

Wait a second. All those names are men. What the eff does THAT mean??

I guess that’s gonna have to be a blog post.

For now the point is that there does exist a host of people whose reaction I worry about. Example: faith. Or politics. What if I write stuff that contradicts the way Dad raised me and then he reads it? Then what? Then I have to face the harsh reality that I’m a 30-year-old woman still seeking Daddy’s approval. And what does that say about me? Or, another example: sex. What if I had to write about sex? Penelope writes about sex all the time, but SHE’s Penelope.

Penelope also writes about how her fiance’s (or ex-fiance?) family prints out her blog posts and mails them to each other. How does a woman even show up at Thanksgiving after that? And then proceed to write publicly about the very family that prints out her blog posts and mails them to each other? I mean, how does a woman continue to write fearlessly after that?

I haven’t even figured out how to write fearlessly without any reverb. But considering that my post from yesterday got a mere 3 comments, I guess the only people’s reactions I have to worry about are James, Matt and Suzanne’s. I just might be able to handle that.