“I guess,” she said in perfect poignancy, “my problem, that
is. I’m too afraid I’ll mess things up. I’ll find myself having volunteered for
something. Something I'm passionate about. But when I’m there, I’m completely wrong for the situation. I don’t
fit. They wanted the hammer and got the nail.”
“But how can that be true?” He said. “You do so much.”
“Yes. You see, that’s part of the problem. I do so much but I
do it all in constant fear that they’ll discover, at any god-given minute, that
I’m not the right one for the job. And so I do it all, all of it, everything I
can. I do it all real fast. As fast as I can get away with so I’m there and
then gone and then the work is done and they can see the work and it’s done up
all real fine and the like, but they can’t see the creator. She’s gone in a
blur. But that doesn’t matter. ‘Cuz if they could stop the blur, examine it,
scratch off the shiny varnish, they’d realize she’s a fake.”
“You might need to slow down a bit in life.”
“A fraud.”
“This can’t be healthy.”
“I’m scared that I’ll be invited into a group and then ruin
it. Create awkward moments and careless chatter and the group will regret
having invited me. That’s the worst feeling there is in the world. To be an
object of regret.”
“Are these feelings you have often?” He asked.
“Too often. Almost every situation I’m in.”
“Why?”
“Why? What do you mean why? It just is.”
“I don’t think it has to be like this,” he muttered softly.
But he wasn’t sure how else it could be because if those were her thoughts who
could tell her not to think them. So he left it at that and she worried that he
regretted the conversation.
And her.
