What Am I Doing Here?

I hear this collection of five words, first as a short sentence, then as an insistent question, repeating in my head. What am I doing here?

Sitting at a wobbly brown Formica table, in a brightly-lit public library surrounded by strangers, in a city I barely know, the cursor on my blank page flashes at me, impatient for an answer.

What am I doing here?

My Substack is new, but my impulse to …