Shake It

I am grateful for people who cry or get nervous at meetings. They take away that nagging sense of terminal uniqueness and show that these reactions are not special or remarkable, just human. They can be shared plainly (not stuffed or magnified) so that others can feel human too.

Like lots of people, I shake when I'm nervous. Today I had to go to traffic court for the first time, and I did everything I could to stay composed. I told myself exactly what I needed to say, rehearsed it in my head, and tried to stay in control. And I shook.

I shook in an Al-Anon meeting when I qualified the first time and I shook when I came out as queer to one of my regular Al-Anon groups. And people were supportive as hell.

I usually try to hide it, but trying to acting normal in the midst of this is not convincing and it comes off as kind of silly. The shaking feels like a real feeling trying to be expressed, and fighting the flow doesn't make the feeling, or the symptom, go away.

I want to reach a point where, when it's happening, I can just let it happen plainly and to be willing to risk the connection that comes with other people identifying with that reaction.

One definition of terminal uniqueness: Protecting yourself through your feelings of being completely different from other people and through your ideas that you are therefore misperceived by them.