sometimes my competence feels like a paper house — a house that, from the outside, looks livable. I can get by with it, take shelter in it, fool people into thinking it’s a house. i can even lean on the walls a bit, lean on what i know, lean on what i’ve learned.
then there are times when an unusual look, the way a remark was made, or something said that i regret can tear the house down, send the roof and the walls fluttering into the wind, leaving me feeling exposed, revealed as a fraud.