Writer's Conference Overload

I am in my ultimate-most element today! I'm at a writer's conference! Vacation! I am away from the city and happy and with fellow writers! I'm making friends, listening to people talk about improving the craft, listening to people talk about their creations, listening to people like me who can't get enough of talking about Writing! I love it! Love it! Love it!

And, by the way, the title of this blog is an Oxymoron! If you know what I mean.

It's really funny. I've realized a pattern in myself when it comes to these conferences. It's a little revealing, I suppose, but... I intend to go to these events months in advance, I know which conferences are coming up when and I get excited about it and know I'll be going. Then about a month before the event I start tossing around the idea of "what if I Didn't go?" Which quickly turns into: I Really Don't Want to Go! Two weeks before the event I decide I don't want to go, only by then I've committed to it and registered and have no way out (that's a good thing) and then there's really this high anxiety of there's going to be too many people in too small a place and oh my gosh, People!, and I'll be away from home and it'll be long and I'll be stuck in places I can't get out of and I Just Can't Do It!

Now I'm getting better with all of this. At one point that anxiety lasted through the event and it was so high I just had to leave and I couldn't handle the pressure...of what? Being around people? And I'm a social person - So social - so what's the problem? I haven't actually identified the why behind my behavior, but...

With this event the anxiety lasted up until four days ago. Four days ago I was still telling myself, It's not too late to not go, I'll just not go, it's not That big a deal...I'll stay home and it'll be great and I can go climbing and ride my bike and .... yeah. Then I started thinking about the actual people I Know who would be at the event, my friends who I really only get to see at things like this, like Eric and Dashner and maybe Julie (who I'm really sad to not have here) Anyway, all of a sudden I couldn't wait for the conference to start. Yippee, another conference!

So, to make a ridiculously longer thing a little big shorter, I make myself sign up for a conference, I forget about it, wait for it to come up, wait and wait and try to forget about it, then I dread it, am sure I won't go and I'll just miss it and be fine and then I get excited about it, either days before or not until I'm actually there and then I just start letting myself breathe and relax and have fun and enjoy the people So Much, and then it's over! and I come back down to real life, go home, and for the next two weeks in my head I'm always still there, reliving the event, counting down until the next one when I can do the whole mental thing all over again...

I think I'm working up to just being comfortable being at the event. Why not skip all the BS uncomfortable thoughts beforehand? Why would they even exist in the first place? Maybe from here on they won't. I've recognized them, acknowledged them and now I'll dismiss them and maybe just trust myself, knowing that I'll have fun and it won't be scary and I'll be fine and it's the greatest awesomest thing that I love to do the most and it's always worth going to.

I can trust that I'll always meet new awesome people at these events. I already have at this one, cherished friends who I'm so excited to be around right at this moment and will want to be around a lot in days to come, people like Jaclyn and Stephanie and who are aspiring writers, teenagers brave enough to show up to something like this when they could be anywhere else. They've got Such a headstart and I hope they know it! And an amazing author and speaker, Wendy Toliver, who I know I'll love to get to know better. I picked up her book at the bookstore here today and she's already signed it for me and I know I'll have a chance to talk to her more later today and it'll be awesome.

So frilly hats off to conferences and today and writing. Especially to writing. And to friends who encourage me in being what I am - A Writer!