merriest

my favourite house along our evening stroll - I love this little lit snowman

wishing you all the merriest of holiday seasons
with much love and gratitude for all of your love, comfort & support

xo Susan, Miss D, Piper Belle, BleetNess, Oliver & Gus

The cowboy and I had plans of making our tiny seaside village social debut last night. We were invited to a holiday open house at the busy seasonal café. The couple who own the café are dog loving creative people cut from a similar cloth and people I like and hope to know better. I was tickled and grateful to be invited. Homemade eggnog, lots and lots of people and much good cheer was on the menu. I suffer from a kind of social anxiety - though people who know me are always shocked to hear this as I almost always appear cool as a cucumber, chatty - dare I say extroverted. Madam Social Butterfly is my outward appearance. This is what happens when you are frightened of social interactions (especially those with crowds of 3 or more) from a very young age - you learn quickly how to perform like a fearless person - to act. You become very skilled at covering it up and hiding this seemingly irrational fear. Often I look back through my life at the things I've done and accomplished that have required great social courage on my part and I'm dumbfounded. I wonder who was that ? Anxiety and fear is almost always anticipatory - it's blind fear all tangled up with expectations and imagination (vivid always). If I manage to blow through that anticipation and actually go to an event or an occasion I almost always have a great time and appear to many (even myself) the life of a party. Madam Invincible magically takes over for me ... every time.

I am sorry this morning that the cowboy and I missed the party - Regret is the closest friend of this kind of anxiety.