Intimidate

Stepping into a room full of experts can be intimidating when you are new to something.

For me in recent years, that's been joining a local writing group, and joining the Embroiderers' Guild.

At the writers group I felt like I wouldn't be taken seriously because I write short stories and I hop around between genres. I don't have a concise answer for the question "What do you write?". The other people there all seemed to have an answer and would always talk about what they're working on. After a few meetings, though, I realised that I have no reason to be intimidated by these people. I've heard them read some of their work, and I honestly think I can hold my own in this company.

At the Embroiderers' Guild I felt like I knew nothing. I came in as a self-taught embroiderer to work with people who have been doing this their entire lives, and they are now approaching the tail end of their lives. There is a lot of experience in that room. I don't embroider in the same traditional way as a lot of them, and that makes me somewhat self-conscious. I don't want them to tell me I'm doing it "wrong". But so far, everything I've shown there has been well received and encouraged.

The list line I've yet to cross due to being intimidated is music. I was very involved in music growing up, but I fell away from it after school. I was never a very talented musician, but I could at least play what was in front of me. I'd love to get involved in playing live music again, but I'm still far too intimidated by people who know what they're doing, who are talented, to whom it seems to come so much more naturally than it does to me. I have to fight for every bit of progress I make musically, and it seems like it would be hard to find somewhere that would be accepting of barely capable musicians.