Day Nine: Saying Hello

How my mom tells the story is that I loved talking to
strangers. I’d go right up to them and introduce myself. “Hello, my name is
Beth Barovian, B-A-R-O-V-I-A-N.” Any chance to show off my mad spelling skills,
really.

I don’t remember doing this, but I do remember racing to the
phone whenever it rang. Speaking of which, do you remember when phones plugged
into walls, and the family had to share them? This explains the racing. I had
to beat out my dad, who answered the phone never.

There is the matter of my sister, who rivaled my dad for
quiet. When we were growing up, she was the shy one. There’s another story
about Mom having to peel Jeni off her legs to join parties instead of playing
shadow.

Jeni’s since grown out of her shyness. I’ve grown into mine,
but I didn’t realize it until I read this from Brene Brownabout her viral TED talk on empathy:

­­ I’m glad I did it,
but it still makes me feel really uncomfortable.

Oh my. Yes, that’s it. That’s what publishing a book feels
like and what posting blogs feels like, and it feels like it all the time for
me. I’m glad to have done it, but it makes me feel really uncomfortable. This
last part doesn’t come from a lack of confidence with the writing. It’s a shy
bone when I thought I didn’t have one.

By the time I stopped this blog, the shyness had grown so big, like a sunny-day shadow – the kind that are three times the size of the source. It followed me everywhere. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there, and I couldn’t step around it. It was my companion. I needed to figure out how to say hello to it.

Feeling like you just busted into the middle of a conversation? Maybe you did. Let me take you to Day One of this series so you can begin at the beginning.