Meeting my favorite bloggers makes me more nervous than being on The Price is Right

I’m excited and stressed and having moments of feeling so nervous I might vomit. It’s like taking the floor for my high school cheering competitions all over again. For the record, yes cheerleading is a sport, I have a knee injury to prove it. Here I am more than 20 years past my high school graduation and feeling as though I’m right back there again. Back to feeling like the awkward girl who tries to make everyone laugh because she’s so uncomfortable in her own skin and worried that nobody will like her unless she can tell a good joke. Funny how at certain times we can so easily be transported back in time to a place that’s so uncomfortable. Right now that time for me is BlogHer, a conference I’m attending later this week. I leave on Wednesday for San Diego, California, the city where my husband and I began our lives together and where Cody began his growth inside my womb. San Diego is a place I’d love to live again. As a matter of fact, if I didn’t have a family waiting for me here at home, I might have bought a one-way plane ticket and just stayed indefinitely when the conference ends. Instead I’m going for the conference that is two days of jam packed sessions filled with learning, networking, and just plain good times. I’ll be sitting right back here in this very chair so quickly, it will feel like my time in San Diego flew by at light speed. No matter how much I want to absorb every minute of the learning and connecting with many of my amazing online friends, my body will have other plans. My body will be filled with butterflies and my mind will be racing as it tries to remember everything I’ve stuffed into my Google calendar, so many things overlapping from one hour to the next. I’ll want to hug and chat and learn and work, after all, if I’m going to leave my family for several days, it simply has to be beneficial to all of us. In all honesty, aside from my two wonderful roomies, Lori and Megan, there are only two other faces I can’t wait to see. That’s not true. I mean there are so many faces I can’t wait to see, but like last year when I got to meet Jenny, there are a couple of other bloggers who simply inspire me because they aren’t afraid to speak their minds, even if what they are saying isn’t exactly popular. They both write with courage and integrity, sharing details of their lives on nearly a daily basis. Sometimes they make me laugh, I’m pretty sure one of them made me cry, and they both have left me thinking. I respect them both immensely and being in their presence will bring more nerves than when I stood on stage at the Price is Right with Bob Barker or the time I sat within an arm’s reach of Dr. Phil. Both true stories. Let’s be real. If I was going to make up stories about celebrity meetings they would include somebody like Madonna because even though I’ve attended three of her concerts while sitting in floor seats, we were hardly within bonding distance of one another.

And so I’m nervous.

I don’t have a script and I don’t carry a flask filled with courage so meeting them will be just me hoping I don’t look like a total starry eyed little girl who can’t put together a coherent sentence. Everyone says just be yourself. That’s all fine and good when you’re not trying to fool your body into thinking you are totally cool and articulate and don’t require wine to to carry on a witty conversation. My body knows better. My body knows these women are a big deal on the internet and it also knows how much it means to me to spend time with them and get to know them a little better. My body knows I’ll require a full glass of wine(not too full that I spill it on either of them and look like a total fool) to help me relax. My head knows, however, that they are just people, like me and you and Bob Barker and they just might be a little nervous, too, for reasons they may or may not have shared publicly. They might need the wine to be plentiful and someone available on the other end of the phone to text to for comfort and suppport, just like me. Or maybe they won’t either of those things. Either way, I plan to share wonderful conversation, maybe a hug, and most definitely a snapshot, with each of them as part of the moments I hope to savor while I’m floating through this whirlwind weekend known as BlogHer.