reach out: make new friends, touch old ones

I have really been enjoying keeping in touch with old friends. I haven’t really made many new friends but I am so shy that even being able to leave comments on here is such a big step for me! I am going to make this a permanent goal so I don’t get careless.

I am doing a great job with the old friends-all the letter writing really helps.I I used to feel guilty all the time when I thought of alot of my friends because I was so negligent(sp?) but with all the letters and postcards I don’t anymore…maybe I am just not much of a phone person and I’m good with that as long as I write instead-to keep them close. I am not doing anything with the making new friends…I am not really sure what to do-friends have come into my life before at the right time-I have never gone out looking for them. I guess I expect that will happen now—I’m not going to worry about it unless this goal stays on here a long, long time.

We went to visit a friend that goes to Ithaca last weekend. We got to hang out with her, her friends and her parents and it has been along time since I have been around a group who so thoroughly enjoyed each other. I am painfully shy and awkward and tend to avoid alot of social situations with people I don’t know so this was really breaking out for me.

I don’t know why I work myself up into a dither when I always have so much fun with people. I have convinced myself that I am fearful and more of a loner than I really am. I think because I am something of a social misfit that I don’t like being around people but that is just not true—I am just a bit of a dork and I should embrace my dorkiness.

I am having lunch with an old friend today-I am so excited to see her! I have been in the city for over a month and this is my first time-she is busy and I have been in my weird hermit thing—it is time to brake free.

Self-consciousness made me conceal myself and drift from friends and friendly stangers, and I would go to lenghths to conceal myself, even in company… you know, fear and certainty of rejection, common fears—now, I’m at the point where (I think) I don’t mind others knowing me and don’t have to be uncomfortable around other people, and am ready to exchange some of my secret self for a greater public self.