I struggle tremendously with leaving my house. And when I do, it has to be with my safe person, my husband. Recently, I have been rediscovering my love for writing and have been looking into how to publish my poetry. I have also been working on a novel. I have left my poetry unpublished in a journal for many, many years, out of fear that it would never be accepted and out of fear of even getting myself out there to go seek help or meet other people. Well, one day I was at my local library with my son and husband and I noticed a posting for a Writer's Ink class for beginner to advanced writers...and I told my husband I should really try to go but I am terrified. He said go do it you can do it! But when the day and time came, I felt so dizzy and I was so terrified. I still got into the car by myself and went to the library and walked into a room of stiff people. I was shaking and could barely speak, but I was there. It was very intimidating because they all ended up being professional writers. I was too shy to share anything and felt extremely judged, especially because I was so much younger than them and less experienced. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to just run out the door so bad. BUT, I stayed the full 2 hours. I did it. And you know what? I attended another Writer's Ink meeting yesterday night at another location, and I ended up loving it, and I actually spoke after a small activity where we had to do a 2 minute writing exercise based on an inanimate object we picked. When I spoke and they could hear my words and ability, I could see I gained their respect. Sure, my voice was trembling, but you know what? I also said, "I'm sorry, I am nervous" which I find helps me and actually calms me. And I just kept going. I am SO PROUD OF MYSELF for going not once, but a second time. It can truly take so much effort and contemplation because the anxiety leading up to it is debilitating, but once you do it you are so proud. I want to be fully transparent in that I did take an Ativan for the 2nd meeting because the first one scared the living daylights out of me LOL and I could barely breathe getting ready for the second meeting. But when I came home I realized I probably did not have to resort to using it. I have some poetry about anxiety I'd also like to share! If anyone is interested. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. It means a lot to me. The picture I uploaded is my writing prompt. I was given an old Nokia camera and I had 2 minutes to write whatever came to mind and then read out my response :)
