Comfort zone? What comfort zone?

Greetings from my second trip to the annual PennWriters conference in Pennsylvania. The conference is in Lancaster this year, a bit farther from home base, but worth the drive. I had a wonderful stop over visit to my old stomping grounds and dinner with one of my favorite people. And solo road trips allow the advantage of singing as loudly as possible to the most ridiculous mix tape.

Yes, I said mix tape.

The original plan was to meet up with another friend of mine at the conference, but she was unable to go, a fact that sent me into a bit of a panic. Faithful readers know that I have social anxiety, as well as puts-foot-in-mouth disease. If words actually leave my mouth. Usually I create the world's most uncomfortable silence. It's bad.

So before I left I sought out the advice of my circle of trust, or should I say my circle of trust took it upon themselves to give me advice. Either way, the results were typical. Mom said to smile, be myself (but mom, that's part of the problem), and oh yeah, smile. That solves everything. She then told my sister, who sent me a confidence boosting string of texts advising me to channel the extroverts I know. It was actually rather sage-like and included the idea of putting on a "cloak of confidence." In other words, fake it till you make it. I can do that. I'm an actress, or at least I was back in the day. Mom said if I could get on stage in front of an audience then why can't I engage with a stranger in a bit of small talk. "It's a stage" has become one of this weekend's mantras.

The hubs told me to look at the weekend as an opportunity to enjoy "me time" and do the things that I like to do when I'm alone - just do them in a new setting. Wander around and people watch? check. Sit by the pool and read a book? check. Enjoy whatever weird vegan food/juice I want without having to justify myself? check. The only thing I won't get to is dance around wildly, although my suite at the hotel is big enough should I decide to.

So far the conference is going well. I miss my friend, but we've been texting throughout the day and she said it was like having a virtual reality experience. Every once in a while I get a wave of, HOLY CRAP I'M ALL ALONE, WHAT NOW. But I just breath and smile (see, mom, I do listen) and come up with something to start the conversation ball rolling. With everyone I encounter. I do not allow the evil enemy, Uncomfortable Silence, to even bare his claws.

Because here's the thing: writers are inherently introverted. And I've noticed that a lot of people come here alone. So they're probably just as freaked out on the inside as I am. It isn't a perfect system, mind you. But I'd much rather be the person who starts a benign conversation that may or may not lead anywhere than the person who sits in a puddle of negative thoughts trying to figure out what to say next. It's a stage, I'm an actress, someone who seems like she is outgoing but is really just trying to keep herself from imploding. And then, I hide away in my room to recharge.

Do what scares you, people. Figure out a way to make it work. It's worth it.

Going Solo

The last time I traveled alone was in 2003. The husband was on deployment for pretty much the entire year, and although I can't remember the exact date I'm sure I traveled back home at least once that year. That was also the year I went on my scariest adventure: Hong Kong. While hubs was sure to point out that I wasn't technically alone for that trip - a group of wives traveled together, but none of them were my friends so it only sort of counts - it was pretty darn terrifying. And once in China I needed to navigate to my hotel alone and then walk to the dock by myself in the morning.

TERRIFYING.

You see I'm not the best traveler. I get nervous. Like, I can't eat for 24 hours prior because my stomach is in ragey knots nervous. It doesn't matter where we are going, what we plan to do there, or who is coming. So it's not a big surprise that I am a ball of nerves right now and have been since yesterday. Today I am setting off to my third writing conference and the biggest one yet. Oh, and I'm traveling alone. Which is pretty awesome on one hand - no one to entertain but myself, no one whining about how hungry/bored/full of pee they are. Just me. And my tiny little bag filled with just  my stuff that took about 10 minutes to pack. Okay, it took about two hours to pick out what I was going to wear, but the actual packing part was super fast.

I'm meeting my friend on the other end and then we have a driver taking us to the hotel. A driver. As in some guy is going to hold up a sign with her name on it and everything. Here's the thing. My friend is kinda famous in the writing community and she's part of the faculty for this conference, and I am crazy lucky because she still wants to hang out with me despite the emotional word dump she endured on our last few road trips. (Seriously. Sometimes I don't know when to shut up.) Oh, and she lets me tag along with her on conferences. And she brings sponge candy. And introduces me to amazing people. So yeah. Anyway, the conference is going to be huge and a bunch of well known people from the writing community will be there, and I get to meet them and sit down and talk about my book with them and holy crap that is a lot of things to make me a nervous wreck.

My husband told me this morning that I can't put my best face forward when I feel this way, and he's right. I need to get out of my head and enjoy the journey. I had an amazing time at the last conference - made new friends, had a ton of fun, and learned a lot about writing and about myself. I didn't want it to end. It's something I get to do that is entirely selfish and hey - I'm not going to apologize for this - it feels good. So as I sit here waiting to board and thinking about what is just around the corner, I'm hoping the nervous feelings with hit the road because frankly, I am sick of them holding me back. I walked through a communist country alone and lived to tell the tale; this is easy compared to that. Right?

Tie Fighter, Travel & the Terrible Twos

P turned six in early April, and as mom does not like to disappoint her many fans, I constructed his cake in the shape of a Star Wars tie fighter. It turned out pretty well with no frosting disasters this year (I even learned how to make black frosting) and was met with public success at our first ever out-of-the-house birthday party. Note: Easiest. Party. Ever. Of course my bubble was popped when P announced that next year he just wants cupcakes. Sigh. No worries, my youngest turns three in a few months and I can focus all my creative energy on his cake. Except for the little problem of his continuous train obsession. When I ask him what type of cake he wants, he simply goes through the list of Thomas the Train characters. Seeing as I made an Edward cake last year, I just can't bring myself to do the same design again this year. I mean, where is the challenge in that? And my friends, it really is all about the challenge. This year for P's cake, I enlisted the help of two fellow Star Wars moms (thanks ladies!) to assist in the design phase. And while I may need some practice dipping twizzlers in melted chocolate (you should have seen the mess), the overall results were pretty good. Enough about the cake; here is a photo.

Moving on. As for the adults in the family, we enjoyed an amazing trip to Greece during spring break. Without. The. Children. It was originally planned for our ten year anniversary but had to be postponed due to the arrival of our second son. After spending the first 24 hours traveling and/or stuck in the Athens airport, we enjoyed a relaxing and energizing (yes it is possible to accomplish both of those feelings simultaneously) trip to Santorini and then an educational stop back in Athens before returning home. The adventure was much needed balm for the hectic pace that our lives have been functioning in back at home.
Which brings me to the third element of this entry's title: Our toddler. God bless him, he came into our lives the sweetest baby - slept without fuss (which was a huge difference from what we had been used to), ate like a champ and had a easy-going disposition. The first few months of "two-dom" went by with little complaint; he continued to be sweet with only the occasional emotional outburst. He even cooperated with potty training. We couldn't believe our luck! Then something happened. He must have gotten the memo that two is supposed to be TERRIBLE. He suddenly decided that food was more fun spread out all over the floor and regurgitated onto the table. That it was perfectly okay to break out in bloodcurdling screams at 2am when his stuffed animal fell out of the bed. That hiding under the desk and filling his pull-up is downright hysterical. And the worst: That any voice of authority has ceased to register in his hearing range. Even when the dreaded middle name is used. I know toddler hood is about finding one's way in the world and I can deal with the chorus of "I DO IT!" and the occasional assertion of defiance. But my child has gone beyond that and it is wearing us out.  Thankfully he has been interspersing moments of laughter at his developing language, which at some point I need to document. (His most recent: Mommy will you play tic-tac-two with me?) And I keep telling myself he is simply trying to navigate the world in his own way. My mother assures me that, like everything else, this too shall pass. Let's just hope we all make it out on the other side.