Before we proceed, I think you should know a bit about Esmerelda, my inner critical voice nemesis.
She rang the doorbell the other day. Even though I was expecting her, I hid behind the hallway corner wall, giving her a few minutes to conclude no one was home. I did not move – we’ve all watched police procedurals where a moving shadow gives away the perpetrator’s presence.
Frozen, counting breaths, I figured this maneuver gave me another day before Esmerelda might ring again. I can ignore her for only so long, but surely you can understand my need to hide. I needed more time to prepare for her, to fortify myself against her visit. Esmerelda always manages to tell me something I don’t need to hear.
I’ve known her ever since I could remember the names of all my classmates. Middle school was intense. We walked home together, contemplating social drama and the mean girls of the day. And mornings before homeroom, she liked to pop by my locker to check in. High school was much the same. She even showed up to run cross country, convincing me it made sense to train and race together.
Though we’ve moved farther apart, we still had ample opportunity to spend time together over the decades. I don’t enjoy her visits, but for some inexplicable reason they are inevitable. Esmerelda is not only tuned into my life and its seasons of change, but she also relishes the good, the bad, and demands every single detail of the ugly. Such a drama queen!
Akin to public speakers who visualize their audience in underwear to help ratchet down the butterflies, I’ve learned to imagine her as a caricature when confronted with her version of truth telling.
Under a flowered vintage scarf, her hair is wound so tightly in outsized rollers they give her a mini facelift. Cucumber slices cover her eyes so she can’t look into my soul. The rest of her face is slathered with a minty green face mask. A nasty cigarette, smudged with her gaudy lipstick, dangles from the corner of her mouth. It bobs when she speaks in her coarse voice. To complete her ensemble, Esmerelda wears a snap-front housedress smattered with food dribbles on her ample bosom, and scruffy bunny slippers.
Esmerelda lingers when I have negative, bouncing thoughts. Thoughts that appear during times of doubt and significant change, or times of fatigue when life feels hard. Like now, as a woman of a certain age amid a career change, when I find myself in the throes of accelerated learning. In particular, on those days when I think about quitting every 45 minutes. And, when I find myself apologizing for not knowing.
“Can I do this?
“Am I good enough?
“What else?”
Esmerelda is my nemesis. She is the little voice that feeds on my feelings of inadequacy, imposter syndrome, self-limiting doubt, and anxiety.
When I was in my twenties, I thought I’d have it all figured out by now, Esmerelda long gone and moved away. But, no, she still manages to drop by now and again.