Spring Shedding

A little about scrubbing, a little about sharing, and maybe some slightly scary goals to pursue

It is a singular experience to be a grown human, in the prime of your life as far as ability and maturity goes, and, at the same time, to have yourself tossed around, scrubbed down, and somewhat pummeled by an older Korean woman. Yet, this was where I found myself this month.

Face-down on a table, buckets of water thrown across my back, skin rubbed raw to the point that I was sure I bled. I tried to remind myself to breathe evenly as the elderly woman paired with me scrubbed my back so fiercely I thought the saying that kick-started all my childhood insecurities about my freckles was rooted in truth. (You know the one: “I’m going to scrub your freckles right off!”)

Relax, relax, she urged me, pressing her hand to my shoulders, trying to get them to drop from their customary position, somewhere around my ears. You chose this, I reminded myself, This is a fun thing, a treat! But it seems I have a knack for getting anxious even about the things I do for fun, or the passions I pursue for the love of them. I still find myself worrying I’m not doing any of it “right.”

She didn’t scrub my freckles off, but she did scrub a whole lot of skin off. I could feel it on the table beneath me, little pieces of me that carried versions of me years past, pieces of me that had long since worn out their use and died, yet I’d still carried them. Shedding the pieces of my history that no longer served me, thanks to the expertise of this older woman, was a physical manifestation of something I’ve been working through mentally and emotionally for years now as well, again with the assistance of female experts across various fields.

At the end of 2025, a lot of people were talking about it being the year of the snake, how most of us should be shedding the skins that don’t serve us anymore: habits and mindsets and relationships that were holding us back from our true potential, from the people we were meant to become. I've spent much of the past three years working through hurdles for things I need to shed: components of my life that were actually getting in the way of me living my life at this point. It has been hard and exhausting, but I’m really proud of how I’ve grown as a person through it, and how doing the hard work, and not hiding from confrontation and unpredictable outcomes, has actually helped me feel more confident.

But there’s one large piece holding me back that I am ready to shed. I love to write, and I love when others can read it in small doses (similar to those of you subscribed here—I am so thankful for you!), but I’m terrified of sharing things at a larger scale. I’m terrified of sharing something so it’s available to the masses and it isn’t absolutely perfect in every way.

Please enjoy this very real text I received back in 2019 from a friend who was clearly able to read me for filth. I’ve never been so called out about my writing IN MY LIFE and at the same time, I am fully aware I will never write anything as amazing as Emily Dickinson. This beloved text haunts my dreams and my nightmares in equal measure.

There’s always an endless stream of questions that follow when I consider the implications of sharing writing widely: what if readers don’t like my characters? What if I’ve messed up in my portrayal of something? What if they’re bored or hurt by what I’ve written? What if I missed something that needed a warning? What if the impact of my words is worse than my intent?

These are questions I really don’t have answers to until I share my writing, and they’re concerns I can only control and prepare for up to a point. After that, it comes down to putting it out there and seeing what people actually make of the stories I write (whether they even care at all), or . . . not. Just not sharing my writing at all. I’ve spent the past several years erring on the side of “not.” In fact, I’ve spent most of my life erring on the side of not sharing myself with others, to one capacity or another, because there’s always been the fear I would be more of a weight than a perk, or just not of enough interest to be worth the time (the duality of thinking your life is not interesting to anyone else but also being SO entertained by yourself . . . does anyone else who lives on their own and hasn’t had to answer to anyone but themselves for years feel this way?)

The time has come, I think, to shed this inclination to not share, though I may need some help and encouragement, much as the older Korean woman helped me shed so much dead skin in a single hour (yes, I know this is gross, but also you have to admit, it’s impressive!).

When you’re working on a writing project and it really gains traction creatively, it can absorb all of your creative energy. It can take up every last drop of writing power you have to offer. It’s the best feeling in the world to be in the zone like that with a creative project. The downside: what do we do with all that comes from that period of time when it wanes? How can we make the creative output accessible for others, as that’s often a motivation to bring it to life in the first place, when so many creative fields have gatekeeper after gatekeeper and not the time or financial resources to share in proportion to the intensity of the creative work period?

In my case, I’ve been wearing a rut in the same path for over five year, trying to nitpick and tweak something I wrote in a very specific time in my life, to work through things that had been weighing on me for half my life. But that rut has worn so deep, I think it’s become a cage of its own for me in my writing pursuits. The only way I know how to haul myself out of the rut effectively is to share the story, so it can’t be sitting with me in the hope of edits toward perfection anymore.

It’s never going to be perfect, and it shouldn’t be. But it was written for the person I was and helped me grow into the person I am today. So I hope, if I share it, maybe a reader out there will enjoy it just like I enjoyed writing it. Maybe it will keep them company as they become who they’re meant to be, just as it did with me as I wrote it. That’s always been the magic of stories for me, and that’s the most important thing I want to contribute to as a writer. The story that’s better than a perfectly edited, precisely packaged and marketed one, is the one that perseveres to reach readers anyway, to maybe fall into the lap of a reader that will need it most, right when it arrives.

But that can’t happen if I get in the story’s way.

So, here we go. I’m taking steps right now to lay the groundwork to get that kick in the pants I need to share a story, in any way, to whatever extent I can. I’m trying to scrub away my inhibitions just like that woman scrubbed away at my skin earlier this month. And hopefully, the result will be a fresh, fun story for you, and for me, more space to keep writing for you.

Xx

Post-scrub, I was hanging out in the cafe area of the spa, and I was very cozy in the pink lounge-wear, and also very impressed this woman managed to wrangle my short hair into a sturdy up-do with that bandana?! This might be the happiest smile I’ve worn all year, honestly. The relief of shedding unnecessary things!