Tonight I had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with fellow social media, blogging and twitter enthusiasts.  It was awesome!  I would like to thank our host, Stephanie, founder of ATL Chicks.  She rocks!

I am proud of myself for going.  It was waaaaay out of my comfort zone to drive 20 miles to hang out with a bunch of strangers.  And sit in rain traffic.  And go home and change into “professional” clothes really quickly so people would take me seriously.  (I have gotten carded for cigarettes a lot recently, with cashiers laughing in my face and saying ‘yeah right’…I need to look a little older)

I usually don’t put myself in uncomfortable situations, but I walked in, said hi to Stephanie (who I have briefly met once) and introduced myself to others (I’m not even going to pretend that I didn’t have help in that area.  I was introduced to people). I made some great connections and got to talk to some awesome new girls.

I was kind of cool because some of the girls were like, “You’re that girl who knits…right?  I heard about you, knitting during WordCamp and I thought, who knits during WordCamp and I totally thought that person was lying.”  No, here I am world.  I knit all over the place.  Hence the name, Knit in Public.  I am addicted to knitting and proud of it.  And, being recognized as “that girl who knits” (which probably happens way more than you would think; it happens more often than I could’ve ever imagined) is pretty fun.

I did feel a little overwhelmed and a little shitty about myself.  Being surrounded by successful women who are doing what I want to be doing was intimidating.  Especially in my state of “going to college was a waste of my time” attitude.  Even though I have been a little down on myself lately, hanging out with these women and hearing their stories really gives me hope that I will be able to achieve my dreams and get where I want to go.  I just have to keep working hard and hanging in there….hanging in there….I can do it.

Hanging in there is rough.  Just sayin’.

Tonight was a lot of fun and a great growth experience for me.  I really have a hard time being engaging and outgoing around strangers.  I forget to ask people questions back.  Like, when they ask, “Where are you from? What do you do?  Why the hell are you knitting?”  I have to force myself to remember to ask things back, such as, “I’m well, how are you?.”  I think that there must be something wrong with me.  Or, maybe I’m just really selfish.  But, I smiled and forced myself to speak and ask questions and now they aren’t strangers anymore.  And, I feel like this blog post has turned into an episode of Gilmore Girls.  So, yeah.  I’m hanging.  Over here.