v.24 There Is No Legitimacy Committee: The Myth of Being ‘Real’ Enough
Welcome to Life, Created—a new [old school] blog for modern times. This twice-a-week(ish) dispatch is a space for us to dig deeper, recognize microjoys and build community beyond the mindless scroll.
A strange thing happens every time someone calls me a writer: I flinch. It’s a tiny, almost imperceptible reaction, but it’s there. A reflex. Like my body wants to correct them before my brain catches up.
“Writer?” I think. “Sort of—ish.”
Real writers are different. Real writers have degrees in English, build entire worlds and drink black coffee while annotating large books. I write, yes, but not like writers write. They spend their early years poring over literary greats, dissecting poems, and writing short stories that get published in student journals with names like The Plum Tree Review.
Writers don’t go to design school and study global business.
Writers don’t spend their twenties working in fashion, buried under mood boards and leather swatches.
Writers don’t wake up one morning in their mid-thirties, scribble thoughts on social media that turn into a talk that eventually collide with an editor, and somehow—against all logic—turn into a bestselling book.
And yet.
Here I am.
Two books published. Hundreds of thousands of copies sold. My words translated into languages I don’t speak, living on bookshelves in countries I’ve never set foot in. And still, I hesitate. Still, I tell myself that real writers do something different, something I must not be doing.
But I write.
Just a few of the translations of my books. And no, I have no idea how a blonde white woman ended up on the cover of one of my translated books.
I write because it helps me make sense of things—because sometimes the world is too loud, too fast, too nonsensical, and the only way I can process it is through words. I write when I’m lonely, when I’m really happy, when I’m both at the same time. I write because it is the most honest thing I know how to do. Because when I was drowning in grief, words were the only raft I could find.
I write because my mother, before she passed, would FaceTime me every day and somehow, somehow, always angle the camera directly at her chin. Every single time. And now she’s gone, and I never thought to record those calls, so all I have left are words.
I write because my nephew—Little B—should still be here, but he isn’t. And there is no way to make sense of that, except to try.
I write because time moves too fast. One day, I’m standing in my Brooklyn apartment with pink highlights and a big backyard [that our nasty neighbor wouldn’t let us use,] and the next, I’m living in Montclair with a different life, different hair, and a heart full of memories that feel like they happened to someone else.
I write because, in the middle of the worst year of my life, I started noticing flashes of joy. A song playing in a coffee shop. The warmth of my cat curled up next to me. The ridiculous satisfaction of peeling an orange in one (almost) perfect spiral. And I wrote them down, one by one, until they became something bigger. Until they became my next book, Microjoys.
I write because my words are the closest thing I have to a superpower.
And yet, my brain still tries to tell me I’m not a real writer.
Because I don’t know how to write fiction. Because my brain struggles to follow a three-act structure. Because I always have to double-check which one is fiction and which one is nonfiction (yes, really). Because I don’t spend my days lost paging through some great American novel—I write essays and listen to novels on audiobook but surround myself with (so many) books, anyway. That’s what my brain can handle and my heart calls for.
Last Fall, after conversations with a friend, I decided to write more. Not for money. Not for approval. Not for some vague, future book deal. Just because I felt compelled to do it. To be more prolific. Because the world feels like it’s unraveling, and words are the only way I know how to stitch something back together.
I write to hide.
I write to honor what I know.
I write to remember.
I write to cry.
I write because I woke up one day as a grown ass woman but I’m still always looking for some other adult in the room to be the responsible one.
I write to laugh.
I write to feel deeply.
I write to connect.
I write because it’s accessible to me.
I write because I’m bored.
I write because I’m so fucking grateful. For everything, for all of it—this life.
I write.
And maybe that makes me a writer after all.
And maybe you, too, are already something you don’t yet believe yourself to be.
We spend so much time waiting for permission to step into the things we already are. Waiting for validation, for external proof, for some imagined benchmark that will finally make us legit. But what if we stopped waiting? What if we decided to claim the thing that we already know in our bones?
Because here’s what I’ve learned: No one is coming to anoint you. No one is going to knock on your door and say, “Congratulations! You are now officially allowed to be the thing you already are.”
So maybe today, we stop asking—and just claim it.
Because life is so fucking short and at the end of the day, we are not just one thing. We are the sum of everything we do, everything we love, everything we create. We are our curiosity, our resilience, our laughter, our losses, our willingness to try again.
It was never about being real enough for some invisible standard—it is about showing up. About doing the thing, again and again, because something inside us calls for it.
Maybe the only permission we ever needed was our own.
And that permission— is enough.
NOTE: I’ll be speaking (virtually) at The National Conference for Women on March 5th, and I’d love for you to join me. The lineup—and no, I’m not kidding: Oprah Winfrey, Sara Blakely, Isabel Allende, Padma Lakshmi, and so many more. It’s a virtual gathering for women across all industries and career levels, filled with keynotes, workshops, networking, and inspiration. Because yes, we all deserve to invest in ourselves.
Tickets are normally $150, but with my code NCFW50, you’ll save $50. I hope to see you on March 5th.
There’s a steadiness in me now, one I didn’t think was possible after years of living with the constant hum of fear. Since 2020 (and probably long before), I’ve braced myself for loss, for the next unraveling—but lately, that grip has loosened. It’s not that I don’t see the chaos; I do. I just don’t feel swallowed by it. The world is still heavy, still uncertain, but I am no longer waiting for the ground to disappear beneath me. And this feeling, this inner knowing, is the microjoy that I didn’t know I needed—especially in the world as it exists today.
That’s all for today. Thanks for reading Life, Created.
With love, wisdom [and small mercies] from Montclair. xx
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