Not because I can't hold my own in social events, because I've been told that I can be quite charming once I get warmed up.
But because no matter how old I get or how many successful social experiences I have, walking into a room of strangers, especially women, takes me back to the awkward, overweight, out-of-her-social-league college freshman on her first attempt at sorority rush.
That's right, I said first attempt.
Because I did it twice.
As it turned out, it would take a summer of a make shift Mommy-Daughter Fat Camp and the help of some good 'ol point counting to help me wrap my chubby little arms around my inner diva. I lost 15 pounds, started running {albeit slowly}, and was able to feel that I was physically similar to my new sisters.
{a side note here: in hindsight, the tragedy of my overweight story was not the weight itself, but the already unique outfits I put together, made more, um, special by my inability to choose appropriate sizes}
Flash forward to Tuesday evening when I coaxed that insecure girl into a Junior League meeting across town filled with strangers. True, it didn't help that I was ten minutes late or that I had dropped a ketchup-covered pickle down my cardigan and onto my grey pants while trying to gobble down my quarter pounder and navigate against Siri's best directions to my foreign destination in a thunderstorm. But. I sucked up my courage, signed myself in, found a seat, and made a b-line to grab a glass of complimentary wine.
You know, I was okay!
I was once told that sometimes you just have to fake it until you can make it. It's true that I have a sometimes paralyzing fear of strangers, although most people don't believe me. At one point in my life, I had learned to master that fear. Then I got comfortable. Now, I must once again, learn to push past the fear of not being good enough and master it.
And.
I'm off to a good start. I left my meeting with a business card, a little spring in my step, and a little less fear.
Happy fear fighting, y'all,
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