How can I explain the last four days? How do I put into words that at that same time I am thinking I got nothing out of BlogHer, I also feel I got just what I needed.
Let me preface this by saying the following:
- This is going to be a long one, sorry.
- But more importantly, while it may read like a pity party, it isn’t meant to be. I'm okay. No pity needed.
- Truly. Just let me process. Ok?
And I have to admit, I didn’t have an answer to his question.
He was right to ask it. Over the last year, I have taken time off work for blogging events. I have spent money. And, most importantly, I have taken days away from my family.
All of that might be one thing if it were my career. But this clearly is not. This is an outlet. A hobby.
Writing here, to me, has always been about thinking and reflecting and documenting. Doing that all in hopes that someday the boys will read it back and be able to hear about moments I have long forgotten. Or remember moments that you only can when you are reminded of them. Or be able to hear my voice.
Along the way, other incredible moments and opportunities have come along because of it. I have traveled, I have been able to help raise funds and awareness for children’s hunger, I have seen and done things I might not have otherwise done.
BlogHer is an odd beast. It is huge and overwhelming and unwieldy. Even if you aren’t a jealous person, it’s hard not to feel like you are on the outside looking in at it as you see and hear people talking about where they are heading and knowing it’s nowhere you were invited to go. You are surrounded by squeals. And hugs. And the haves and the have-nots. And it’s hard not to get wrapped up in it.
Many of the issues and emotions I experienced over this weekend were not BlogHer’s issues, they were mine. They were just magnified ten-fold by the size and scope and complexity of the events surrounding me.
I guess it’s less jealousy than insecurity that started to seep in the moment I got there, I briefly alluded to it on Friday.
The first smack-me-in-the-face moment was when my roommate, Suzi and I were talking to two other women at a party. Something caught Suzi’s eye and she wandered away. And as that happened, I continued to talk. The woman I was speaking to interrupted me and said, “Um, your friend is walking away, you better go after her.”
And so I did.
The next day, I attended sessions, and walked through the sponsor exhibits and tried to talk to people. People kept talking about finding their tribe. How was I supposed to find my tribe in the sea of bodies? How do you make real connections in parties with loud music and hundreds of faces? How do I find my tribe when, looking around, it seems that everyone had already found theirs?
That night, I was going through and trying to update my Twitter account to follow new people I had met with or those who were newly following me. For whatever reason, I realized that a woman who I had lunch with the previous day, a woman who I thought I had a great conversation with had unfollowed me. Sure, it could be a mistake. I get that. And it's Twitter. No big deal. But here we had been following each other for weeks or months and on the day she actually met me in person, she unfollowed me. Guess that was a tribe I was not meant to join.
There were other seemingly small moments like that that kept piling up. Moments where I felt like I was behind a clear door looking in and couldn’t find the doorknob. (There it is, that darn door again.)
Don’t get me wrong. There were bright spots. There were good sessions that made me think. There were some good laughs and some great moments.
And there were some great people. People like Suzi, Anna, Anna, Allison, Niri, Heather, Kelly and many more.
But then there was the worst moment. The final straw if you will.
Saturday I woke up to an email reminding me of an event that night. But it didn’t mention a time, location or venue name. I scanned my notes and couldn’t figure out what the event was. I sheepishly wrote back and said that I’d love to attend, but would she mind resending me the details as I seemed to have misplaced them.
A few hours later, I got the invite.
I walked the six blocks to the event by myself that afternoon. As I got there, I walked up to the check in.
“Hmmmm, nope, we don’t have you down. Did you just RSVP today?”Yes, I responded, I might have. I explained the story.
Evidently the reminder email was not really that.
“Oh, you were not in the original group of invitees. All of the hair and makeup appointments are full. And only the first round of invitees get gift bags, but we’d be happy to put you on a waiting list.”Yes folks, that was the first time I have officially been told that I was on the B-list. Standing there in a line of people being officially welcomed to the A-list, I was told to step aside and see if I could get in.
I was invited to be waitlisted.
I wandered through the small space looking for other souls who looked like they were wanting another soul to talk to. Nothing. Everyone was already talking.
I finally approached two women and introduced myself. We stood for a few moments before one gestured to the wall where there were three chairs in a line, suggesting we sit down.
The first woman took the first chair, I sat in the middle and the other woman took the third one. We talked no more than 15 seconds when the first woman said,
“Would you mind if you and I switched chairs?”I traded spots with her and turned to talk to them. She immediately turned her back and that was the end.
“Of course not.”
And then I did what any emotionally exhausted, thoroughly over-rejected woman who had all of her insecurities pounded for three days would do. I called upon my high school theater skills. I faked that I received a phone call, an urgent one, and I walked out back onto the streets of New York talking into a phone that had no one on the other end of the line.
My promise to myself not to cry lasted all of a block. And before I knew it, I was sitting in a bar called Character's Grill drinking a Coke, tears rolling down my face, makeup all over the backs of my hands, by myself, frantically typing notes on my phone.
As I did, I thought back to walking the exhibit hall. While there, one of the booths had the author Todd Parr there. He wrote one of my absolute favorite children’s books called, “It’s Okay to be Different.” I have read it to all three of the boys many, many times.
But my favorite is the last page. It says something like:
It's okay to be different. We are all special and unique and I like you just the way you are.I think I had my answer then. It’s okay to just be who you are. And who I am. In some ways, I kind of needed a weekend of feeling like I was constantly hearing the opposite to really remember that.
I don't need to be anything other than what I already am.
This was, oddly, one of the most emotionally exhausting weekends of my life.
I know, a blogging conference, how silly, right?
But I think I got my answer. I am okay being just who I am. I am going to keep on doing what I do. I am not going to let the “supposed to” moments dictate my life.
And yes, part of all of that means I am a sensitive person. A person who takes things too personally. A person who is easily hurt.
That is a part of me. I will own it.
It’s okay to be different.
