Continuing to Grow

I wrote last month about joining a Mom's group at my church, about how hard it is for me to step out and set myself up to be rejected.

Things have continued to go well. Having taken the step to get out of my comfort zone, I have found that I LOVE going to the group. I love spending the time with the other ladies, I love chatting with everyone, I love the feeling of actually CONNECTING for once, with the ladies of my church and age group.

A couple of weeks ago, at the Mom's group, I met another lady, a few years younger than myself, but still close to my age (I believe we are about 7 years apart, though I could be wrong). She just recently moved from Quebec, and she doesn't feel she can speak too much English yet, though the English she speaks is very good, in my opinion. In any case, I was really excited to have met someone else who could speak French...she as her native language, myself as a second language. So I took the big step of approaching her and asking her a question about herself...in French. She was delighted! Since then, we have friended each other on Facebook, seen and talked to each other at church, and are set to have coffee tomorrow morning. And we always speak in French. Which I LOVE!!!!

I was also able to help her out in an unexpected way...she just got a job and so will need child care. Not having used child care myself, I didn't immediately know of any way to help her...and then it occurred to me...I knew someone who had been in my Chorus who had done child care, AND she had a French background, so was completely bilingual. So I once again stepped out of my comfort zone and phoned this person, which was REALLY hard for me to do. It's weird...I have this phobia of phoning people, even when I know that person. And it turned out that yes, she still does childcare, and yes, she DOES have spaces. My French friend was over the moon when I told her and gave her the name and number.

I have started accepting (AND receiving) more invitations to events, and so am getting to know people better, and meeting more people as well...and I guess having people know more about ME in the process....at church yesterday, when I stopped to talk to my friend, there were two other francophone ladies that I knew from the 5 years I have been at that church who were THRILLED (and surprised) to hear that I knew how to speak French. And who said we should speak in French together sometimes. (Yesssssssss!!!!) Last night, I went to a Pampered Chef party where it was a room full of people I had never met or really didn't know past sight...and I was there 3 hours and talked to at least 1/4 of the ladies there in fair depth.

It's still really hard to step out and allow myself to be seen, heard, and take the risk of being rejected or ignored, but I'm finding that when I do manage to take that step, that it is, for the most part, turning out fairly well. I still sit alone at church. I still don't feel comfortable with inviting people over for coffee out of the blue (and my house is not exactly in "come on in" condition...still have slob tendencies)....but I think, given time, I'm going to get there.