I am here to write my way out of a pit that has mysteriously sunk in the middle of my room, trapping me at the bottom. That's right, I'm at least four feet lower than usual, requiring the use of very long chopsticks to reach my keyboard.

I dislike psychobabble phrases such as: "you're afraid of your own success," because, well, who would be afraid of success? I mean what a stupid thing to say. Success is good, coveted, desired.

Yet. It's true.

Here, poised at a stage in my life (and my husband's) when all is going better than it could possibly be imagined, the earth tried to open up and pull me down, and to help it, little black flying demons of negativity came to step on my head and pry my fingers free from the rim so I would fall.

In layperson's terms, all this great stuff happening has kind of scared me. I'm not supposed to be this happy. I'm not deserving of this success. Surely someone is going to come by any moment and revoke my right to all this bounty! Why even bother to enjoy it when it's only going to be snatched away?

You see the problem? Not exactly a great way to pay back the universe for its generous gifts of goodness.

So I'm writing it down here as a public confession, hoping that by doing so I can climb up and out and realize that sitting in a big old funky stinkhole of fear is really not better than walking into the bright light of success. In fact, it's far worse, and a gurantee of keeping success out.

So I'm going to stop it now. Right now.

JPR