Halloween Potluck!

It sounded innocuous enough, but when I saw the notice come across my work email address, I dreaded it. Forced social interaction with attorneys and secretaries and all of the personalities of the people I work with. Now, they're all nice people. Some are very funny and very nice.

But.

There's something weird about it for me. I (with so much help from Dinah) spent time Tuesday night making up pumpkin bread to bring as my contribution. The whole time I'm mixing it up, I'm thinking about what I'm going to say. Wondering whether I could be funny or if I should just try to get through it quietly. I was seriously anxious about it.

I used to be so confident. I think. (I could be misremembering it, trying to think there's this ideal me out there that I lost track of.) But, I don't think so. I think I used to really have a lot of confidence in the feeling of who I am. I was never a social butterfly (and I probably never will be), but I didn't get anxious about having to talk with people.

So. Where did I lose that confidence? And how do I get it back?

For the first question, I don't know, really. I have my ideas, but it probably wouldn't help to go into it now. As for getting it back, well. I guess I just gotta jump in and start doing some of these things that I am not sure I can. And not be too hard on myself when I fail.

God, that's one thing I've got to change. Because after the Potluck yesterday, I thought about the couple comments I made. How I could've timed them better. How I could've said something more here or there. Gauging the laughs and whether they were big, or whether they were just polite. And yeah, it's a potluck with co-workers whose opinion of me matters only a little bit. This level of scrutiny is not healthy for me. I gotta give myself room to fuck up.

On this and on the bigger things that I'm procrastinating on. (Like my writing).