Knowing many things

There are many things I know how to do well. I can take a good photo. I can take good care of my granddaughter. I can do reasonable portraits and funny little doodles.I can write stories (I didn't say publish). I can build a website - stuff like that. But it's hard for me to be in community. I stink at it. Really, I do. Even after all these years I still struggle with it. I have learned, however, that it is something I need, something everyone needs. We are humans, after all, and humans are social. Even I am social despite my best efforts to live under a rock. The thing is I've learned that even if it (my effort at community) doesn't look terribly successful that I still need to go slogging up the hill (what feels like slogging sometimes). For one thing, I have no perspective. People could think of me of quirkily charming when I think of myself as a pretty much a misfit. Perhaps (here's the most important part) it actually does me some good, a very delayed realization. It changes something in me, something that affects my ability to get out there and do it again, something that helps me take other risks and something that leans in and affects my writing. Like all writers I notice things and I finally noticed this.  

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