I must admit… I was soooo anxious about starting a blog. I mean anxious enough, that it lingered in the back of my mind for many months as my website developed, stopped developing and started again.

I wondered…what would I write about and why would anyone want to read it?  For months, I created lists of possible blog topics. On the back of scrap paper, napkins and some times my hand.  But, scrap paper gets lost, napkins get tossed, hands get washed, and I was left to again wonder and worry about what I’d write.

Then my website was just about done.  I received a book contract from the publisher.  I learned to tweet. I registered on facebook.  “Just put up a couple of blog entries before you unveil your website,” the designer suggested.  “Yeah, sure,” I said, my poker face hiding my great unease.

When I spoke of my fear to a friend, she told me I was silly.  “You wrote a book,” she said.  “A book that’s going to get published.”  Of course she was right, but book writing involved a period of years, followed by months, ok years, of editing.  A blog entry is supposed to be quick and witty, not too long, not too short.  It’s a perfectionist’s nightmare!

So, finally, the other day, I bit the bullet.  I wrote my first blog entry. It’s the one about taking down the tree.  (The Andie turning 10 entry had been blank for quite some time).  So I wrote and I clicked save, thinking I go back, maybe 2 or 3 or 30 more times to review and revise. But, lo and behold, to my great surprise, there it was posted on my website.  Just like that.  I had blogged (is that really a verb?).

So for months I had worried about something that was over in a matter of seconds.

It reminded me of my epidural fear.  Throughout my entire pregnancy with Tuck (never got that far during Andie’s) I worried about a needle going in my back.  Back in 1998, not getting drugs wasn’t even a thought in my mind.  So I carried a growing Tuck in my front, and a growing fear of the drug that would keep me calm, pain free and less afraid, in my back.

When I was in labor, I begged the young anesthesiologist to please, please, pleasetell me when he was going to stick the needle in my back.  When he laughed and said that he’d already done it, I sunk back on the bed, relieved, and maybe even a bit disappointed, that I wasted all that energy worrying about something that turned out to be no big deal.

As I continue to learn, it’s like so many things in life…you just don’t know ‘til you get there.