On self doubt and sweaty palms

An anecdote about a cringey thing I did and some reflections on pushing through anyway

It’s a Wednesday in March and I decide to take myself to a coffee shop to write before I start my workday, as I do from time to time. I walk into one of my usual spots, a place I know I’ll be able to focus and enjoy a latte while writing and working. Oat milk, this time—a rare deviation for me, but I am recovering from a cold, after all.

It’s early, just ten or so minutes after 8a.m., but the two-top tables are already taken and so I take a seat at the large communal table in the back. I am still a little sleepy and not quite ready to dive in and write, so I set a timer for ten minutes and whip out my crossword book—an analog habit I picked up that I really love.

There’s a conversation happening at a table nearby¹ that I can hear pretty clearly. That sounds like a business chat, I think, based on how these women are being friendly but formal with each other. I start to tune them out, which is something my ADHD brain is really good at.

I would love to work with you, I hear one say, before they’re fully tuned out of my brain space. I’m nosy, and I’m curious, so I flip the internal switch and listen more closely. Part of what I love about working from coffee shops is being a fly on the wall to others’ interactions. Is this a job interview? An informational chat? Two influencers, coming together for the collab of the century?

Coffee Shop Sociology

I continue to listen and hear snippets. Words like essay and writing and representation and published collection flood the space. It quickly becomes clear that this is a writer of sorts and an agent of sorts.

Lately, I’ve realized just how important writing is as a part of my life. This publication has been the catalyst, but finally committing to consistency here has made me want to explore other ways that writing can be a part of my life. It’s had me start to put out a few feelers—sending a few pitches to various publications, meeting with writers who are a few steps ahead of me, and overall just exploring ways that this could² be something more.

And now, here I am. I decided to come to this coffee shop on a whim this morning—a very last-minute decision, made in between feeding my son breakfast and putting outside pants on myself. I tried to ignore the voice inside of my head yelling “HELLO??? THIS IS A SIGN????”

Shh, I think. It’s just a sign that people are writers and people are agents and I am just witnessing this. It doesn’t have to mean anything else.

My timer goes off, and I start to type out my morning pages, which yes I type, but do make sure they’re incredibly unfiltered.

Much to my chagrin, I am completely focused on this conversation happening in front of me. I’m trying to play it cool (yes, with myself³), feeding into the narrative that this is just cool to witness and means nothing else despite my desire to take writing more seriously, when my actual thoughts break through and find their way to the page before I can catch them.

From my morning pages:⁴

“I would be lying if i said i didnt think about going up to them. I dont want to interrupt their conversation…something kicked in me and told me to come to this cafe, today, after not being at this cafe in awhile. and here are people talking about writing -- one with a career doing it, one who talks to writers as their career. and like…gets them published.

I look back at that and am immediately annoyed with myself for letting it out. Because now I’ve said it out loud and I know deep down that going up to them is the thing I actually want to do, and that it’s the part of my brain controlled by fear that is saying this like “just seeing the conversation and being here is good enough!”

I continue:

whats the worst that hapens if i go up to them? they say no, my ego is a little brusied, and I move on? idk. i could do that. i could ask for their cards or hand them my information scribbled or something (do we need cards these days?) but i dont know -- do i really want to do that? I am not sure…one day i will be talking to an agent at a coffee shop, maybe. that would be super cool. a girl can -- and will -- dream.

I finish my morning pages, and try to focus on writing an essay. My mind keeps coming back to the coffee chat I’m witness to, thinking about going up to them and somehow introducing myself. I grab my notebook and scribble my name, email, and phone number on two little pieces of paper. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet, but at least I have something ready should I find the courage to do what I want to do but don’t want to do. Later, I think I should’ve used a bigger piece of paper. A little slip could get lost easily.

I go back to try to write but my brain can’t stop thinking about this, so I add on to my morning pages. I realize my heart has started beating slightly more quickly, I get a bit more antsy, and my hands feel a bit clammy—I’m fully embodying a fight or flight response for a decision I haven’t even made yet.

I want to do it, I know I should do it, but I am trying to find reasons not to.

I could try to find them after the fact, missed connections style. As a matter of fact, I heard the agent mention the name of her agency and I noted it down. And the other woman is bound to be in one of the neighborhood groups. So why not just leave it up to fate, let them go on our merry way, and see what I can do after the fact? My friends can attest to this—I can find almost anyone on LinkedIn, if I try hard enough.

The fact that reaching out behind a screen is far less intimidating than doing something in the moment, in person, feels crucial to this story I am telling. I’ve always been more comfortable behind screens and words, even as a child. I would have full-blown conversations with people I had crushed on or wanted to be friends with at school on AIM just to ignore them when face to face. So this reaction and default response is an old one, and it felt safe.

I guess I should’ve known then—writing is my medium.

I then remembered that the day prior I decided to unlock my previously paywalled Embarrassment is Fake essay, where I talk about a Youtube video that changed the way I think about embarrassing myself, being mortifying, and led to renaming my newsletter to This Might Be Cringe.

It’s not lost on me that I chose to reshare that particular essay on my notes less than 24 hours before this moment.

So, what would Caroline Winkler, the creator who inspired all of this, say about this moment? What would I, as the woman who wrote that essay, say about my choice in this moment? I actually know what I would say—I’ve said it.

If I may quote myself:

“Embarrassment, at its core, is a barrier I’ve created for myself—one that I’ve allowed to dictate so much of what I do (or don’t do). But as I sit with these reflections, it becomes clear that I have a choice: to let my life be ruled by the fear of hypothetical thoughts others might have about me, or to choose my own happiness and fulfillment instead.

It’s not an easy shift. But if embarrassment really is just ‘ideas about someone else’s theoretical ideas about me,’ then maybe I’ve been holding on to something that was never even real to begin with. The anxiety and rejection sensitivity I feel are real, but I’m learning that they don’t have to define me. By choosing joy over fear, I hope to live more authentically.”
- Julie Laufer, Embarrassment is Fake

Respectfully: fucking hell. Why’d I have to go and try to better myself? I talk a big talk about committing to push outside of my comfort zone and committing to being cringey and not living for people’s hypothetical thoughts about me, but when push comes to shove, what will I actually do?

Here’s the test. Can I walk the walk and talk the talk in the moment, when the anxiety hits and I very tangibly see a way out? It’s all fun and games when we’re talking about what we want to do. But when it’s time to do it? I’m resenting my past self a bit!

I can very easily ignore what I know I really want to do—something that might ever so slightly set things in motion for something I want (to write, to write, to write more, to connect with people in this space). I am afraid of the hypothetical thoughts they might have about me (and others in the cafe), and that acknowledgment feels important.

Or, I can choose to fight that fear and anxiety and go up to them anyway. I can hand them my crumpled slip of paper with scribbled information, say my piece, and let the moment pass. The worst case in that second scenario is neither of them want me to buy them coffee and they don’t reach out. That’s the same thing that happens the first scenario, but in the second there’s a best case—the potential that something comes of it.

I talk myself into—and back out of—approaching these women dozens of times, getting absolutely nothing done. I decide to play the scene out in my head to ‘practice’ the potential interaction, a trick that helps my nerves when dealing with something scary and unknown.

In my mind, I go up to them when they get up. This is an important meeting, after all! I walk up to them, cool and calm. I introduce myself, shake their hands. I explain that I am a writer, and have finally started to take it more seriously. I ask if I can take them out to coffee, hand them my contact info, tell them to think about it, and walk away, cool as ever.

An amount of time passes—it could’ve been five minutes and it could’ve been 30, but it was enough time for me to stop hyper-focusing on this situation and actually focus on my work—when I notice the conversation has turned friendly. They’re wrapping up, I think. I know this is it. It’s now or never. I start to rehearse the potential moment in my head one more time, but they start standing up before I can finish the scene.

Before I know what’s happening, I grab the two scraps of paper and am walking towards them. Excuse me, I say.

My memory blacks out at this point, as it happens when I’m doing something incredibly uncomfortable, but I remember the agent saying wow, cool! and the writer saying you’re in this neighborhood? let’s meet up!

The moment has passed, I’m sitting back down, my heart is racing. I look around the cafe to see if anyone is paying attention. They’re not. I don’t know if they were in the moment—I can’t tell you much about the moment.

Bits of the conversation start to come back to me, not remembering what I said but knowing I rambled a little bit. I think of what I could’ve done differently—asked for their info, used bigger scraps of paper, asked for their names. But I sit with the choices I made while on autopilot, overwhelmingly proud of myself.

Worst case, I hear nothing and I let my heart rate increase for no reason. That’s where it stands now—at time of publishing, I haven’t heard from either of them yet, and that’s okay. Had I not gone up to the duo, I wouldn’t be hearing anything anyway.

I am a big believer that our actions and behaviors can set things in motion, particularly from a manifestation perspective. Listening to and following our intuition is powerful and helps our minds and subconscious open up to all that is possible.

I’ve been finding more and more joy in writing, and have been thinking about how to do even more of it. I’m not prepared to leave my career in tech, nor do I think that’s the answer at this moment, but I am doing little things—like opening a business bank account to start separating my Substack payments (from my fourteen beautiful paid subscribers) in an intentional way. Is this a needle mover? Probably not. Just a small signal to show I’m open to taking this more seriously.

I also reached out to a large parent network I’m in to ask if any full-time writers would let me take them out to coffee for a casual ‘pick your brain’ chat. Doing this did push my comfort zone, but again those conversations started behind screens, and then moved to in-person (or in one case, a Google Meet). I was able to curate exactly what I wanted to say and put my ask out there. But I think taking this step is part of what inspired me to talk to two strangers in a coffee shop on that Wednesday in March, after overhearing a very serendipitous conversation.

As I process this moment, I keep coming back to one thing—the timing of it all. Starting to send out pitches to publications, meeting with other writers, unlocking and resharing that particular essay on a random Tuesday, deciding to go to a specific coffee shop on a random Wednesday, not throwing my headphones on right away, and allowing myself to eavesdrop on a very specific conversation.

When I told my husband about it later, he said “Wow, that’s very unlike you!” (in a proud way, I think).

And he’s right—a past version of me (hell, even a current version of me in even a slightly different headspace)—would’ve let being witness to that conversation be enough of a sign.

This moment was about me not only writing and thinking about what I want from a hypothetical life, but also taking a tangible step towards it. The more introspective I get about moments like these, the more I realize I have a desire to change a part of myself that’s existed for decades. I’m not changing who I am, but rather allowing myself to become who I am, albeit slowly.

Also, because I know inquiring minds: at time of publishing, neither the agent of sorts or the writer of sorts have reached out, but I’ll edit this if that changes. It’s been two weeks.

1. It’s a small coffee shop — they’re all ‘tables near by’

2. TBH I’m not sold, I very much think that sometimes, it’s really healthy for a hobby to just be a hobby. We don’t have to monetize every single thing we like to do, and the idea that we do feels very rooted in capitalism and a need to be productive and blah blah blah, but I am curious…

3. Do you ever do something that pisses you off? This is mine. Why am I playing it cool with myself??? What do I have to prove to her?????

4. [sic] to all typos in these excerpts—sharing them as written