Anxiety

On top of the anxiety from having to schedule a biopsy and several blood tests, tomorrow we have my first public readaround for my writing class.  Apparently, the writing center has one class at the end of the term where you stand up and read your writing for a maximum of four minutes.

I have been primarily working on a children's story that I hope to publish and don't necessarily feel that's a great venue to read only four minutes of it out loud to mostly older women.  I would prefer to read my children's story at a local elementary school or the library or bookstore during story time to get feedback from the small people huddled around me. 

For the read-around I am planning on reading two short poems, two poems that I think I can emotionally handle reading aloud.  So far, I have been quite the cry baby during writing class, tears flowing as I conjure up images that really didn't make me cry at all when I wrote the words.  I actually thought the poems I have written lately, while dark, were actually packaged up quite nicely in a little unit that wouldn't emit any extreme emotion from me.  I thought the act of writing put it completely under my control.  Apparently not in an open reading.

So I am going to read two poems that I really don't think will make me cry and will bring a tissue just in case.  I'm anxious enough to want to just stay home under the protection of a warm blanket, with my babies (big and small) snuggled up against me.