Made of Monday...

This Monday morning I am made of GERMS! YUCK!I thought I had missed getting whatever this is that made life miserable for my husband last week. Alas, I have not.

Germs aside, I am  made of shyness…in a big way!

I am shy, horribly, painfully at times - shy. I am the kind of shy that comes across as aloof, but there are many layers to my shyness. I am the traditional quite in a new situation, nervous to meet new people shy, but there is more to it than that.

She is not shy very often!

I am not a jump right in kind of person. I like to see how things work. I am not going to do something until I know I can do it right. I don’t want others to think poorly of me, even others who don’t know me. I don’t want to be the person who did something wrong. I want the opportunity to watch and know before I do. It is even better if there is someone to show me the ropes.

I am weary of over stepping my bounds or treading on some else’s territory. I am the kind of girl who won’t volunteer for something because I don’t want someone else to think that I think they can’t do it…or that I think I can do it better.  I won’t ask about your day, because I don’t want you to think I am noisy or that I assume we are more familiar that we are.

I am impressed by people who know people. People who run into people they know at every turn. People who have made the world their “Cheers.”  I, on the other hand, will see people I know at a distance and not approach them for fear of interrupting, or that they won’t recognize me.  I  don’t want to look foolish or over eager. Similarly, I am slow to friend people on Facebook because I don’t  assume they want to be friends with me.

Yet, public speaking doesn’t bother me, so long as I don’t have to sell anything.  Back in the day, I worked for a program that was doing a campaign to get parent’s to talk to their children about sex in the context of relationships, health and safety by emphasizing opening lines of communication early about friendships and concerns that are easier to talk about. I spent months talking to parents, teachers and community leaders about things that made nearly all of them blush or get tongue tied – and nothing I said was graphic or sexual!  I enjoyed that job. I enjoyed the work I did there. Maybe it was that I knew each of those conversations was the beginning and the end. They didn’t have to like me forever, just long enough for me to share our program with them. There was a general script, and I was the subject area expert.

I don’t want to be shy. I wish my shyness was like a sweater that I could just take off and hang in a closet and be the “me” I really want to be: the kind of girl who says hi, who asks how you are doing, who can easily relate to other, who jumps in with both feet.

I watch my daughter being shy (on a rare occasion) and I desperately want her to not be shy, like me. I want to do everything I can to help her overcome that shyness now. I try so hard to not instill my fears and my anxieties in her. I love her and who she is, and I want the world to know her and share in her joy.

So there you have it…this Monday morning I am made of two things I wish I wasn’t made of…germs and shyness.