behindtheax

Wednesday

A neighbour of mine has kindly asked me if I wanted to join her book club and I said yes but now I wish I had said no. Not that I don't think it would be fun sharing thoughts on a book with a group but I'm extremely shy and I know I won't say anything, contribute anything to their group discussions. So I am not sure what value added I would be to them. But at the same time I know I should be pushing myself to socialize more. It just seems that I spend alot of time with my children or husband or doing activities that don't require other people. I jog alone, I read alot, I write, I even work from home now. I always avoided people to some extent because of my shyness but now it seems to me that I am becoming a bit of a recluse. I think that is why I took to blogging. It's a way to communciate without socializing. It's great that way except when I feel the need to leave a comment on someone's site, it still takes a great deal of procastination and self doubt just to say something.

When I was studying nursing I once had an instuctor tell me my shyness was pathetic.
When I started grade one, my sister seeing me standing in the schoolyard came over and introduced herself. Years later, she told me that seeing me standing there out of context from the house and family it dawned on her that she didn’t know who I was.

I get my hair cut once a year just because I am so uncomfortable making small talk with the stylist. I can't handle malls. There were several attempts on my part to join a gym but I couldn't go through with it. There are days when I am dying for female companionship or conversation and on those days I try to go to the school yard early to pick up my daughter, just so I can sit at an empty picnic table. If I'm the first one at the picnic table, great, because I know other moms will come and join me. However if I go to the school on time than there is a good chance the moms will already be sitting about in conversation and I can't approach them because I feel like I am intruding. Weird eh! my kids are a little shy at times but they are more like their Dad, which I am very glad for.

I haven't told my family back east about this blog yet because I still sort of feel weird about it. At first, I thought it was one of the reasons why I should start a blog - to keep them updated on my life here in Toronto, have them drop me comments from time to time but half of them are as shy as I am so I know they won't be using the comment box.

Anyway the bookclub? I guess it might do me good.
You'll notice many spelling mistakes in my entries because I can't spell and the spell check on this site is not worth the aggravation. (Did I spell aggravation right?)

posted by mary j. @ 1:45 PM