Yes, I definitely want that rubbish back

Being seen (and judged, a little)

Last year at the airport, my family and I were trudging through security like cattle with carry-ons.

As everyone knows, airport logic suspends the usual rules of food and money.
You can eat hot chips dunked in ice cream at 9am and claim it never happened.
You can spend $14 on a bottle of water and feel nothing.

But this magical exemption doesn’t extend to children.
They still have to eat the apple you packed from home—the one they swore they’d finish before boarding.

So when my eight-year-old son stepped through the metal detector and it let out a sharp, judgmental bing, he looked guilty before anyone had even said a word.

Out of his pockets came not just one or two stray lolly wrappers, but a full-blown archaeological dig—curled foil, sticky with sugar, crumpled like metallic leaves from a forgotten chocolate/candy forest.

Had the airport possessed a crime lab, they could’ve charted his glucose levels hour by hour.

But the real kicker?

After confirming that yes, the foil was the culprit, the security officer didn’t throw the wrappers away.
He handed them back—gently, politely—as if they were precious artefacts.
As if my son were carrying them out of sentimentality, not secrecy.

Oh man. That moment was exquisitely humiliating.
My son is still talking about it—the quiet reverence with which that man returned his rubbish.

'Oh. Yes. Thank you. I definitely wanted those incriminating scraps back.’

---

There’s something deeply human about flinching when someone sees what you’ve been trying to keep tucked away—even if it’s harmless.

That kind of vulnerability is baked into any kind of creative work.

Making things—art, music, words, even ideas—means revealing what’s rattling around in your pockets. The weird stuff, the obsessive stuff. The odd combination of contradictory-and-not-always-pleasant-things.

You want people to connect with what you make.
But connection means being seen.

And being seen sometimes feels like someone gently handing you your mess and saying,
‘Erm… This looks like this belongs to you.’

The trick is learning to let that discomfort be part of the process, and show up and make things anyway.

I’m a little obsessed with the headspace of writing—what helps, what hinders, and how to keep going when it all feels what’s the point?

So I made something…

It’s called The Inner Game of Writing, and it’s a mini-course launching next week.
It’s packed with every single mindset tool I’ve found useful over years (and years) of writing.

Want to know when it drops? Go on the waitlist here.

Bye for now,

Katherine