The Terror of the Open Door

For twenty years, there was a levee.

I did not just close the door on writing; I bricked it up. I knew the words would eventually consume me. That has happened before. I knew the mechanics of this art. The rest of the world would eventually become distant noise. I chose the safety of the mundane life fortress and silenced myself in it to survive.

Then came March 15th. The door did not just crack; the entire levee burst.

Forbidden Sanctuary is out in the world. I stand in the flood.

I spend my days screaming into the void of the internet. More social presence. More posts. More promotions. More meetings. I run another mile to convince one more person to care. Then my day job becomes a storm that I cannot ignore because it is literally paying for my dream of writing.

But I cannot stop watching the numbers. The sales charts are ghosts that haunt me all day, every day. They are physical tethers dragging me back to the screen. When I see a book sell, I do not see success. I see vulnerability. I think of another person ready to dissect it. I think of another person ready to hate it.

I ignore the praise. I see the kind words, but they pass through me. My mind is wired for survival. It latches onto the possible predator in the grass. My mind gives every ounce of positive energy to complete strangers. And it leaves none for the person in the mirror.

Every noise becomes a needle; every laugh scrapes at nerves. And I feel a moment away from snapping or losing control entirely.

Then there are my sons.

My boys are the deepest trigger for this anxiety. I am failing them. The hours I spend inside the pages of my next books are the hours I do not spend with them. I feel like those two or three hours are a debt I cannot repay. I look at them and feel the crushing weight of guilt.

I am failing as a writer because I am not doing enough. I am failing as a professional because I am exhausted from lack of sleep. I am failing as a mother because I give everything I have to the first two options.

I am too much. I released my sacred work into the wild. Now I am mortified. Is this the consumption I feared?

I had to write this down to get the gnawing feeling out of my head so I could breathe.

But I will do my best and try not to close the door again.

Writing is not a distraction for me. It is my marrow. Without it, the bone breaks. If I kill the writer again, I do not give my sons a mother. I give them a ghost.

I am learning the brutal physics of how to split my time. I must live in the heat of the fire without turning to ash. It is messy. It is loud. It is terrifying. It probably means turning off the notifications.

And I think presence is more valuable than time. It means returning to therapy is not a failure. It is maintenance.

I am too much. That is exactly what the pages need.

I must survive the flood.

Layla Kara