The seats were uncomfortable, the feel all too familiar, strident echoes of long passed school years.  Blue polypropylene buckets that reminisced youthful buttocks, were now supporting those belonging to an older and more jaded clientele.  This evening’s group was mixed, but also the same.  What they had in common transcended whatever differences life outside this cold church hall had bestowed upon them.  In this group, right here and now they were all the same.  This is a collective of imaginative yet timid souls, this was Imposter Syndrome Support Group.

It should start something like that.  These words should indeed be the opening lines for a voyage of self-realisation.  But they are not.  These are instead the words and musings of an infrequent blogger and (unpublished) writer of tall tales imagining himself sat in such surroundings.

If I, or indeed you, were sat in that group how would we fare?      

Would we sit silently on the peripheries, would be feel that in this solar system of creativity we were indeed the debatable charlatan Pluto?  Or would we inwardly scream Carpe Diem, cough a little and then mumble out our concerns? 

I think I’d be option two…

So, in a room full of rounded shoulders, glasses being continually pushed back from slipping off noses who would my peer group react to my cries of insecurity? 

I imagine nodding heads, voices quietly saying “preach brother, preach…”.

Favour found, or quietly implied, would I then bare my soul, expose the at times crippling insecurity that an unread writer feels? 

Will the emotional outlet become a cathartic cleansing of tensions?

Questions, always questions…

The coffee will go cold, but hands will still hold it. 

Suffering will be recognised; true empathy will flow like electricity between the huddled collective. 

Sparks will ignite the imagination, and these lights will flicker and burn behind knowing eyes. 

This is a road they have all travelled, a maze that at times had trapped many. 

The committee will confirm the route needed to escape, the mantra is simple, it is deliberately short and easy to remember.

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole law…”. 

A rye smile is held by all, they share the bookish joke, they know the truth. 

Truth isn’t a glib slogan dropped to seek kudos, the truth that is shared isn’t that kind of prophetic declaration, it’s so much simpler…   

And this truth, what is it? 

Turn up next Thursday, around seven thirty, and we will share it with you.

Stay safe – remain sane!