Being Shy is Feeling Embarrassed to be Yourself

What it Feels Like to be Shy

You want the room to swallow you. You’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough. You’re not enough.

Shy is hiding your shaking hands. Being shy is feeling each atom of blood rush though pounding ears. It’s wishing somebody would see you and say “hi” while simultaneously wishing you were invisible.

Being shy is feeling embarrassed to be yourself.

“Just take me home with you,” I pled. I couldn’t believe my parents were leaving me with people I’d just met.

“You’ll have fun, I promise,” one of them said. “Wrong!” I thought. In the moment, all I wanted was the old wood floor of the main camp cabin to open and suck me into a vortex that’d plop me safely on my bedroom carpet, leaned against my bed, a book in my hands. Book worlds were adventure enough for me.

Bawling.
Hiding.
Panic.

“Don’t leave!” They left. A few days later, I never wanted to go back home. I think I was eight years old.

***

He hid under my shirt. Shy. Embarrassed to be him? He didn’t have the words but I’m sure he wanted the floor to suck him into the vortex of his carpeted bedroom where toy trucks and ninees waited. Worlds of wonder and adventure, more easily navigated than school.

We went back, after I emailed the school. We toured alone the second time. There’d be no hiding behind bookshelves for my kid, dangit. Going back was good. He saw his teacher, one-on-one. Less-shy. Fine, even.

Later, thriving.

***

I was four or five, and sat happily in the hairdresser’s chair. She foot-peddled me up so I could see myself in the mirror. My wispy hair was down to my waist. “Just a trim,” I said. Smiled, even. I was a big girl.

She cut it off. All of it. Guess hairdressers listen to moms more than they listen to babies because I left with a pixie cut.

Shame. Embarrassment.

I wore a hat to preschool Montessori for weeks. One of my teachers pulled it off, and I hid behind a bookcase.

I still remember that feeling perfectly. My cheeks are red as I type. Why did I care so much about my hair? But I did. I cared a lot.

Shy. I felt embarrassed to be me.

***

“School sucks,” he says. Says again.

“School sucks!” louder this time, in case I misunderstood the first two or four hundred. We have three more blocks for me to explain, at least today.

“I’m shy, too…” I say.

“How?” he asks, and I tell him about the time I couldn’t believe my parents left me with strangers for summer camp. For a week. That I ended up loving it after a couple of days of being too shy to talk to adults.

I tell him about how I wore a hat to preschool for at least three weeks when my mom told the hairdresser to cut my hair to a pixie cut and how I was embarrassed to be me. I told him I wish I’d have faked it and pretended to not be shy.

“Oh,” he says. “I remember that story. That’s why you let me grow my hair as long as I wanted.”

“That’s right!” I say, happy about having passed this life lesson along to my son.

“It got bushy though,” he says. “That’s why I wanted to get a short-boy haircut and how do you fake not being shy?”

“I’ll tell you on the way home.”

Getting Over Being Shy

You tell yourself being shy is stupid. All these people in the room are just people. People are dumb, awkward, and insecure.

Just like you.

“You’re being dramatic!” you tell yourself. It’s like you’re too self-important. None of these people care what you think. They’re not judging your backfat (and if they are? EFFF them!).

They’re thinking about their own droopy postures and mismatched earrings.

Who truly thinks what we say or do is sooooo important to other people? After all, they’re just living life, feeling insecure, and going about their business. I think it was this realization that helped me come out of my shell.

I try to teach Tucker the same, although it’s hard when you have sensory issues (which I believe extend to all areas – including being shy).

It’s back to school time and we’re working on not being shy. On remembering that all of us are mostly the same on the inside.

We’ll get there. I’m not too shy or insecure to believe that.

***

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post, hosted by yours truly and my wonderful co-host Kenya Johnson of Sporadically Yours. This week’s prompt is “It’s back to school time and…”