I don't know why it is so hard for me to write here now.  Time is of course an issue but....more than that, I think it is emotional.  I was very brave (for me) at the Writer's Conference last March, I raised my hand, and I stood my ground.  I also revealed more than I had intended, via a spontaneous writing assignment, and had my other submitted work more harshly ridiculed than I had expected.  All of which has resulted in my being more insecure about my writing, and generally feeling more vulnerable and exposed, which doesn't lend itself well to blogging. 
    I am like a me of the past.  One who has a restless unsettled feeling at night, not of things undone, but of being haunted by foolish things said or written.  Things I know that the people I wrote or said them to are not bothering with thinking about.  But still how easily I can torture myself over it.  I am only 100% safe in things I say to my husband and my son, anything else said to anyone else can be used to make me nervous.
    Actually that is partly now why I am going to strive harder to write here more regularly, and to work on my novel (though I am scared to do so). Because I need not to torture myself over little nothingnessess of thoughts shared.  If I am going to make myself uneasy well it should be over bigger mistakes. Stuff more worthy of the stress I attach to it.
    It is so pitiful to stress so over the mundane, to feel my legs shaking as I attempt to walk down the steep steps of my son's high school, because I raised my hand to ask a question at parent night.  A simple question: if they preferred to have papers printed rather than emailed?  They need to be printed.  Why on earth such an exchange should lead to my shaking, I don't know. I kept my thoughts about it rational, but minutes later my legs wobbled freely in accordance with something outside my conscious thoughts. I do hope I can stop being flustered for no reason; I've allowed myself to become all tilted and windblown in the absence of any storm. It is time I right myself.  And on the occasion when I do find myself all tousled and tossed about, at least let it be from having actually braved to walk through a storm.