Thursday, January 26, 2012

Public Crying

So I have been preparing for this workshop I am giving on Saturday. In it I am going to try to read one of my old posts ... out loud. It is the "Inside the Heart" post. It isn't one of my saddest posts. It just illustrates something I want to point out really well. The problem is the whole public sobbing thing.

I still can't read most of my old posts or many of the comments any of you left in those early days without the flood of all that emotion rushing right over me. I can talk about Camille without crying--just not for very long or too in-depth.

I have never heard Stephanie Nielson speak. Have any of you? I mean I guess I have seen her on TV speak but not in person. She seems to hold it together pretty well when she talks about her plane crash and subsequent trials. I am not sure I will be able to do that.

I know I totally lost it the last time I spoke publicly about Camille. I had to stop speaking for what seemed like a full minute or two. I don't mind having emotion in my voice but I really prefer not to get to that level of emotion where my voice goes all high and squeaking and it is difficult to understand what I am saying. You know?

You know the funny thing is that I feel like I did better at the funeral than I do now. Maybe it is because back then I was crying about it all the time so it was a more even flow. Now when I talk about Camille, it is usually after a long time of not having talked about her and the emotion has been storing up in there somewhere.

I am always a little nervous to touch on a subject related to Camille in a public setting. The lessons in church when I bring her up are a little more nerve racking than normal. But those I know will be short points or brief comments in a larger otherwise less emotional subject.

By contrast, this workshop on Saturday, talking about blogging - well my world of blogging is pretty inseparably intertwined with my baby girl. She is the driving force of why I have blogged so faithfully and why anyone outside my family reads my blog.

I just hope I am able to hold it together for most of the two 40 minute workshops I present. Is that too much to ask?