what I meant

I just reread my previous post and it sounds very disjointed, even to me. I was trying to write about two things in one post, the New Year's Eve get together and the upcoming prayer meeting at Dave's. I think I covered the get together fairly well. It was a small house so there was nowhere really to go, but I made a conscious effort to be around people instead of playing my Gameboy in a corner somewhere.

The group had a round of minute story telling (where everyone gets a minute to add on to a previous person's minute story) and thankfully I got to be the timer so I didn't have to stand up in front of the whole group and be spontaneous. During dinner everyone else talked and made comments on this or that, I just listened. After dinner on the way out, one of the cast members said she'd made a New Year's resolution for me. She said I have permission to butt into a conversation. I told her that if I have a comment I will say it instead of keeping silent. That will be hard for me for two reasons:

1) I'm a listener, I absorb information. To reverse the flow, as it were, and actually contribute to the conversation is difficult because I may see a connection that others wouldn't get. And because my mind is often going a mile a minute, I may not see that they may not get the point I'm trying to make. So I'd look like an idiot, offering some bit of trivia in what should be a serious discussion.

2) I DO NOT like looking like an idiot (I know, who does?). And because I have been living in my own head for so long, I will think that they think that about anything I say so I will be very tempted to keep my mouth shut. Right now I don't really know the difference between trivial 'sound bites' and true, meaningful conversation.

And then if I do open my mouth, there's that split second panic when everyone is looking at me awaiting my relevant comment.

Then there's the prayer meeting at Dave's. I didn't call Lotis today, that seemed a little eager to me. I'll call tomorrow. It'd be cool if she says yes, but I'm realistic about it. I'm just glad there's no beer in the apartment. If she says no I'd be tempted to drink four or five. I'd also be half-tempted to crash anyway, but the distance by bus alone is enough to discourage that even if I'd have four beers in me. Plus my dad will be home tomorrow, so I can rant/cry to him if I need to. He's cool that way.

My mind keeps trying to get into 'what if' but there's no use speculating. If she says yes, that's great. If she says no, I must remember that I did it to myself. Though I can't control how I feel, I can make the effort to have clear motives, or if not that then to make a choice to remove myself from an emotionally compromising situation where I would be lured into inappropriate motives. ('Yeah, like the pre-service prayer?' Yes, I know, I'm working on that.)