This is the most honest piece of writing you will ever read.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I blame no one but myself. Writers should be writing. And I wasn’t. I didn’t think my words were good enough. I got lost in other people’s stories, sipping wine, and drowning myself in a puddle of self-pity and chardonnay.

My thoughts always lead to – I’m not good enough. My words aren’t good enough. No one will understand. No one will like me.

But “good enough” is a weight in which I only measure myself. I shouldn’t write for anyone but me.

There are people I constantly want to make proud. But what good is wasting my talents by not writing? Why am I not using the gifts I’ve been given?

What good is watching TV for hours every night? What will that leave behind?

I constantly think of putting things off until tomorrow. But one day, there won’t be a tomorrow. We will all reach that time. I don’t want the last thing I ever do to be watching an episode of Dancing with the Stars and voting for my favorite couple on Facebook. I want it to be something poignant. Doesn’t everyone?

I’ve been wasting time – not writing. What is wrong with me?

This is all I ever wanted – typing away, telling stories, putting emotions to paper, bleeding across the page with a rawness that makes me ache until I felt better. This is all I have ever wanted.

This is honesty.

I messed up. I made mistakes. And not writing is one of them. Thinking I’m not good enough for anything, is another.

I am good enough.

When I look back to that night when I sat across the dinner table at a restaurant that is now since closed, I can still remember his look. I can still remember the way he said, “You’re writing is really great. Your book is…wow.” I think of him often and ask myself, would he be proud of you in this moment? If he were alive, would he be proud of what you are doing?

The answer is no. I have let him down. I have let myself down, more than anyone.

I’ve curled up in a comfortable life. I fell into routines. I gave up writing for a couple of months. I resigned myself to watching TV. I didn’t take care of my body. I spent money I didn’t have.

That is not the life I want. But it’s the aftermath I need to clean up.

I want to take risks.

I don’t want to be afraid.

But I am. I am afraid. I’m afraid that you, who are reading this, will judge me, will make an opinion without knowing me, without knowing what I’ve been through, what I’ve felt.

And since I’m being honest, it’s been hard to feel anything over the past few months. And I wouldn’t blame you for judging me. But know that I judge myself more harshly than anyone who stumbles upon my honesty post.

On Monday morning, I woke up from a deep hibernation. I was able to look outside myself and see. I did not realize what I had let go, who I had let myself become. I didn’t like what I saw. I hardly recognized myself. Who is she?

And then I read a post from Elizabeth Gilbert: “Thought of the Day: DON’T LIVE SOMEBODY ELSE’S DREAM.”

The truth stung. I had lost my dreams. Forgotten them, cast them aside. Instead I was living a dream I hardly recognized, because it wasn’t mine at all. I was living someone else’s.

And I vowed to stop.

I vowed to pick myself and my pen up. I never wanted to lose my dream again. The dream to create words and stories swirled around me. I want to write and create and read books and pair them with wines and talk about authors and stories and live in the spaces of sentences, walk around amongst letters and grammar and make something beautiful. I want to be beautiful.

I’m not perfect. I’m honest. And I’ve hurt myself most.

But this, these pages, these words give me peace. I can start to see myself again, mirrored in sentences.

This, above everything else, is what I want, this is my dream: to write.