How A Shy Boy Who Preferred Books to Humans Became A leader of Clases and Programs aka My Life part #1

Part 1 of two - part two is here

I was talking to someone tonight and it got me thinking. I grew up a shy introvert and were it not for what look like the odd choice now to be a newspaper reporter - made total sense at the time, i'd get paid to write (having given up my prior career plan of being a famous best-selling novelist) and if i could stop apathy here and there that'd be great too.

Then after getting a college degree in mass communications, with an emphasis in journalism, and a minor in political science because I planned to be covering the White House by now for a major newspaper.

So for 15 years or so I was be in a position where i had to be outgoing and do more work with strangers then I was comfortable with. When not at work i'd prefer to be in my apartment reading alone. Didn't understand that about introverts and such back then - just thought of myself as shy. At work i'd talk too fast and too soft and that doesn't work when you're making phone calls to strangers on sometimes terrible things like getting comments after a terrible crime and sometimes just about local government news stories. "You're talking too fast, young man. Slow down and speak up!" God those were words i'd hate to hear.

At some point I realized it was probably not mentally healthy to be so shy outside work but increasingly outgoing at work. (Compartmentalized is the word I found for it years later)

So I started to do things like hanging out at Borders, back when Borders had comfortable chairs you can sit in for hours in coffee sections and between reading this and that and socialize with other regulars and justify it as flirting or checking out ladies and literally judging them by the covers of the books they read. They all got extra credit for being readers, though, having decided i'd rather date someone i met at a bookstore than at a bar. But I digress..

Then I decided i'd commit to attending performances at an open mic night in the same city, Hagerstown, Md. I'm ashamed now to admit i'd often be reading while others were performing but for me just to be there and listening and outside of my apartment.. that was a big step.

Then at some point I decided it was time to face some demons. And so Tommy Lancaster would let me go up and read aloud fiction or satire or columns i'd written. I was probably too soft and read too quick and I sweated through a lot of shirts but I got better at this.

It was my way of facing, straight on, my fear of public speaking. I tell this story these days and people are shocked that I did this. At the time it made perfect sense... and I guess it does now too, but was a very abrupt way to handle it. Some have used the word brave to describe it - I argue it was more an act of inertia and, ok, self-improvement.

Around this time I made a deal with myself: If i was invited to a social outing, be it playing or watching sports (i was and remain not a fan of most sports with cycling and swimming and soccer not being common fare) or watching tv or a movie I'd go. I kept my promise and started to get better at being comfortable outside of my home and work.

Somewhere in there I realized I had a problem of sorts: I was letting my job define my life. Thus I was a journalist and defined myself as such I'd give myself the online nickname of Scoop. Sure I'd pretend it was a nickname bestowed upon me by others but the reality was I'd started it.

And so when i began to get burnt out as a journalist realizing i'd never reach my goal of covering national politics and covering city and county governments were not the same.. .and covering the same issues... with the same peope.
Then cue personal crisis: If I was not a reporter... what was I?
I moved into education and then special education and while I'd sometimes define myself as a special education worker I was becoming other things: a leader of book clubs, and back when those were offline; a leader of online writing exercises; an interviewer of authors, something I continue to this day.

I was no longer just one thing. Just like now - and what started me thinking about this this week - I may do special education but i'm, increasingly in recent months and weeks, becoming more and more of an activist, a fighter of injustice, be it racism or police brutality.

After years of literally writing about injustices but being unable as a reporter to take public actions be it protests or marches, I was/am now able to do so and I seem to be making up for lost.

And so when I think now about how I've had weeks lately where I'm doing something every night after work how far i've come in just a few years, well, amazing. But i'm getting ahead of myself and sounding like my own cheerleader.

So instead I'll stop with this. In between jobs my sister suggested, "in the spirit of major change in this country" (this was about the time Obama was elected) that I leave Maryland to move to Austin where she and my nieces were. In Maryland and Arkansas before it I'd lived and worked with no family there... Now i had some family in Austin and my brother in L.A. and my mom back in Riverside,CA, where I grew up. I'd been to Austin with former girlfriend Joyce Homan to SXSW and loved the city.

Then I planned my move to Austin. And suddenly I realized, oh, boy, there's open mic nights there every night! (Back in Hagerstown I think it was just once or twice a week.. so less of a commitment.)
This was going to be interesting.

And then I did a major overreach: Rather than just drive from Maryland to Austin i'd make it a moving party of sorts. I announced my intentions at newsvine, where i was a very active writer and commenter (this was pre-facebook if memory serves) .
So I made an offer: I'd drive to meet you and your family in person. In exchange you put me up for a night. So it went, I met people in several states and slept in unfamiliar beds but avoided having to pay for hotels and met people with whom i'd been online friends for years. And that was exciting. But, wow, at some point I realized I was either driving or acting braver and more outgoing than I felt.

Then I made it to Austin.
The end... for now.....