I'm On My Way

When this entry posts, I'll be on my way to San Francisco to the BlogHer '08 conference. As you've been reading for several weeks, I'm ecstatic to be going. From everything I hear and read, it is an unbelievable opportunity to network, work, and play with some outstanding bloggers. But I'm also a teensy bit nervous. Well, maybe not so teensy - I'm actually shaking at bit with nerves.

As I said to another blogger recently, blogging is surreal. We share confidences from the safety of our personal little "blogdoms", and when people disagree or call us names (that actually hasn't happened yet to me, but I'm only 4 months in), we are sheltered by space physically and thanks to our good ole' friend, time, we can take as long as we'd like to respond - or decide not to at all. So even those of us, such as I, who have an underlying (and perhaps surprising to some) shyness can present to the world the confident and outspoken woman who has been inside of us screaming to get out. But what if no one likes her? In my quiet pre-dawn musings - in that place between "Mommeeee, I need some water" and falling into a dream - I think about San Francisco. 1000 women. That's a lot. And it is especially a lot for someone who has always felt just a bit uneasy around other females to begin with. For some reason, I was always the girl in the guys' group. The outsider among the varous cliques. And sure, high school was a decade and a half ago, but that part hasn't really changed.

So as I get closer to San Francisco, I think about my past and my future with the women I will encounter here. I hope they are kind and as generous as they are online. And I think about my future with blogging. I'm on the brink of something here. The possibilities are shining in a way they haven't in a long time. The tears are brimming nearer to the surface. I'm feeling more. Digging deeper. And I'm becoming a better writer - even if I haven't shown it yet, I am. I don't know what this weekend will bring, but it's a start. To somewhere.

I've written some entries that will be posted while I'm gone. I hope you enjoy them.

See you back here "live" on Tuesday!