Anxious

“Oh my god. I don’t feel like writing this crap.” He mumbled to himself as he pulled out the laptop and felll into bed. It was just before midnight and he had had a pretty long day. He attended two meetings about how to run meetings and he was nervous and anxious about what his first meeting would look like. He had been asked to think about what his leadership style would look like and how he would set the tone for the year.

As he settled into bed to crank out his 221st post of the year, he didn’t know where to start. He had just come home from a small get together at a friend's house and the exhaustion coupled with the beers made him feel loose and free, but still unsure of how to capture his many contradictory thoughts.

He tried to remember the moments in the day that warranted attention. The only one that stuck was when he was in his classroom at the end of the day, the first time he had to respond to a few emails and gather his thoughts. A colleague walked by and popped in to say hello and ask about his summer. They played the obligatory game of catch up until the conversation landed on his anxiety about his first meeting on Wednesday. She was on his team, and one of the recipients of his newly forming “leadership style.”

“Just be you and it will be great.” She said smiling.

“But I am not sure which version of me people will respond to best.”

“Yes you do. Just be you and stop stressing.”

“But this is a two hour meeting. That is a lot of time to assume I can can fill with being me.”

“You know what to do. You’ll be great.”

She walked out and he sat in his room alone, thinking about what she had said. He still didn’t have a clear picture of what this meeting would look like, but he knew that he would figure it out, because she was right, being himself had always been enough.

Later in bed, as he was writing he wasn’t sure if he could continue to be so open and vulnerable with his writing. Maybe people had different expectations of what he would say, share, write…who he could be. This caused more anxiety.

Maybe these big career changes were not the best idea. But in his heart he knew that he would learn what he needed to learn and that when it was all said and done he would have grown and learned and that he would be enough.

He didn’t want to write this crap after the first day of school and a social gather, but the words just came spilling out and now he was ready for sleep.