Feeling Proud and Getting Loud

It’s hard to believe that Separation Anxiety: A Coming of Middle Age Story was published four years ago. It was a sunny day in November 2014 when I first held the book in my hands. A congenial delivery truck driver had wheeled several boxes into the garage. My cooperative husband took this video.

I was excited, proud, and a little anxious. Separation Anxiety was more than a memoir of childhood and growing up. All the stories were wrapped around a single thread of my lifelong struggle with anxiety. How would it be to have this deeply personal story out in the world? What would people think of me?

The answers came through conversations in bookstores, Q&As at reading events, discussions at bookclubs, and in letters and emails that readers took the time to write.

It stirred so many forgotten memories of childhood. But I could also relate to the anxiety you had to grapple with. So many of us struggle with anxiety but it takes us so long to share our stories.

I was surprised and delighted by the light touch and genuine quest for “normalcy” which must have been a terrifying journey.

I’m going to give your book to my daughter to read. She has been struggling with anxiety.

This story was honest and brave – and along with that, funny and entertaining.

I just finished your book and I’m still teary-eyed. What a journey. Beautifully written.

Your memoir reached me on a personal level relating to my own mom.

The memories of my own childhood that your words have churned up. Barbies, family photos, Phentex knitted slippers…Brave and endearing all at the same time.

Anxiety. “I know what you’re going through.” Yes I do. It is its own animal in each individual but I definitely get it, and you’ve captured your journey with it so well.

Sharing my stories in Separation Anxiety helped readers know they weren’t alone. Readers sharing their words with me calmed my anxiety of “what will people think?” Thank you, gentle readers, for these past four years!