THIS IS SCARY AND HERE I GO

A COUPLE of lifetimes ago, I got a teaching gig at a very fancy university. This place had history. It had hauntingly beautiful gothic architecture, a state-of-the-art library that went back centuries, and this strange and wonderful thing called a quad where students sat in the grass reading Aristotle aloud to each other and discussing how their actions defined their true selves. It was in that quad, on my way to my very first class, that the panic kicked in: What am I doing here? How did I get here? Am I a total fraud?

I got out my cell phone and called my friend Jeff. When he picked up, I said, “I think I’m a fraud.”

The reception was shitty.

“You’re a what?” he said.

“A fraud,” I said.

“A frog?”

“A FRAUD.”

“YOU’RE A FROG?”

“FRAUD. F-R-A-U-D.”

Some students were looking at me, yelling into my phone in their lovely, lovely quad. We were all so young. We had so much to learn from each other. I took a big breath and thought of what I’d gone through to be there. I thought, it’s either This is scary; I’m going home, or This is scary; here I go. I thought I might choke on all my beautiful, terrifying gratitude.

“Actually, I did say frog,” I told Jeff. “I’m a frog.”

“YOU’RE A WHAT?”

“I’m a motherfucking frog.”

There’s so much second-guessing, so much doubt. When I recognize the feeling, I try to stand very still, and breathe, and think of what I’ve gone through to get here. How profoundly grateful I am. How this is scary and here I go.

I am a motherfucking frog.