I don't know why the links here are now purple and blue...I have tried everything to change it, but sometimes, we just have to let it go and maybe we'll come across a solution later.
Which brings me to my next topic. Are you shy? I mean, so shy that when someone you don't know well asks a question you know the answer to, and nobody else does, you just catch the answer in your throat, and feel your face become hot as your heart pounds in your ears? So shy, that you can't go up to the counter at the fast food place and ask for ketchup? Or, if you know you just can't eat your fries without ketchup, you go up and wait for ten minutes until someone stops and looks at you directly and says, "Yes?" and you say, "Can I have some ketchup, please?" and they look at you blinking because they couldn't hear the faint whisper that barely left your lips? Or, a boy you really like, after a silence because you are just enjoying being with him, asks, "What are you thinking?" and you panic, because you really were just enjoying being there, so you say, "Nothing." and realize that is not a very good answer after he raises his eyebrows and says, "Really?" Or, when you see someone you know in a store or at a restaurant, and you want to say hello, but you just look at that person, hoping they will make eye contact so you don't have to say their name and disturb them, and if they don't, you just leave, thinking, "Hm, I would have liked to have said hi."
I have been at all these stages at various times of my life. I have come a long way. But I still am stuck at times. And people are surprised. Do I look outgoing? I must. But, I'm not, never have been. It's a family thing. We would visit my grandparents after being so excited to get to their house, and when we arrived it would take us kids an hour to come out from behind our parents' legs. It was the same with most of my cousins, wasting precious playtime staring at each other out of the side's of our eyes until somebody non-shy came and did something goofy (my Uncle Steves... yes, I have two, or my non-shy cousin Brady, who came much later on so he couldn't help for awhile)
I was also painfully aware that some people thought I was "stuck up", because of my physical appearance when being scared out of my wits in a room full of intimidating, seemingly confident, not-a-care-in-the-world highschool peers. Fortunately, I had friends that had no trouble making friends with
me. What a blessing they were, and still are to me.
I also read somewhere that being shy is a basically selfish phenomenon. Shy people are so concerned with what others are thinking of
them, they freeze up. After I got over being offended, I realized that was true. Then I put it to a test. When I felt that pulling back feeling coming on, I tried to think of the other person, how they were feeling, what they might like to hear or see. Wow. It was an amazing result. I am still working on it.
Now, back to the purple letters bothering me. It occurred to me the other day, as I was talking with my wonderful friends, that maybe the reason I love to write, is that there is no person standing in front of me, making me back up. I can express myself, most times, exactly the way I intend to, and I can even go back and correct mistakes before I put it out there. Sometimes I have become so excited about writing that my pen and my fingers cannot move fast enough...my handwriting is scrolled in tiny writing across the page, getting what is inside me down. My fingers fly over the keybord ad I koik up only to fins ajumble dness. But I love it.
I have found a bit of a solution to my shyness. I hope it comes across as I share my ideas with you here.
Thanks for feeling that.
