Oh Lord, I’m getting so, so nervous for my first meet up with my half-siblings tomorrow! What if we run out of things to say since we’ve been talking so much already? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I have one too many drinks and make a fool of myself? What if they don’t like me and decide that they don’t want to stay in touch after all? And what if because they don’t like me they tell their Dad to steer clear of ever meeting me himself?
Realistically, I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I am very, very good at the game of contemplating horrible “what ifs”.
Every now and again, when I go down this particular thought path, I like to remind myself of this quote that Carly (my coach) shared with me:
“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. George Addair”
In many instances, I think this is very true. There’s some other quote, too, along a similar line of thought that I really like, but of course I don’t remember what it is. Darn, I’m trying to think of where I put it…Ah yes, it was something like “you can create your own hell by living off of negative assumptions and treating them as truth”.
Yea, so I guess let’s not do that.
In order to feel like I had at least a modicum of control over the situation, at least the part about being afraid that we’d awkwardly run out of things to talk about, I put together a list of questions from these “Connect Cards”. I know I have an actual deck of them somewhere packed away with all of my things from my move, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on them yet. I’ll probably just print them out and we can use them that way if we want.
We’ll be meeting at 5pm at an Irish pub in Philly (suitably enough!) I actually think I’ve been there at least once before, many years ago, and heard some live music. My guess is that there won’t be any live music happening at 5 o’clock, but that’s probably a good thing, otherwise we might not even be able to hear each other.
I think I’ll probably take the train in, that way I can avoid crazy center city parking. This way, I’ll also have a full hour to get all sorts of nervous along the way!
I’m disappointed that I’m going to be the only one repping my family, but James isn’t ready for all of this yet and Adam is working a new job, so couldn’t take the time off.
At the same time, maybe it’s appropriate that it’s just me at first, since I’ve sort of been the driving force that that led us to where we are today. Maybe I needed to do this last step alone.
I’m not sure where all of this will lead, but I’m open to the possibilities of this journey.
May the luck of the Irish be with us.
I can’t imagine it won’t go well. Wishing you all the luck in the world.
In the words of the genie from Aladdin, “Just beeee yourself!” Of course they’ll like you- that’s a given. Good luck!