A week ago I was at a conference and met amazing women. I met funny, smart, beautiful, and amazing women. I was hoping to go to Blissdom and come out feeling empowered. I wanted to come out feeling like my writing had a little “je ne sais quoi” that resonates with my readers. Unfortunately, I walked out feeling lame, dumb, ugly and far from amazing.
Let me explain.
I’ve never been a popular person. Trust me when I say that this is one of the reasons technology was so attractive to me as a career. I knew that I would be hanging out with the guys, and could hide behind a pair of jeans and sneakers, never having to reveal my feminine side. I could sit and talk about packet switching and storage area networks without worrying about how that would make me sound.
Those closest to me laugh when I say I’m shy, but truthfully I’ve always been happy to sit in the back corner of the room and joke with everyone, letting others take the front stage. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ are all tools that allow me to sit back and jump in on a conversation when I’ve taken a deep breath, formulated my words, and re-read them to myself out loud to make sure they make sense. Social media is my crutch and gives me the power to feel connected without fully putting myself out there to be laughed at.
I walked nervously into the rooms at Blissdom with the naïve feeling that my message was improving, that I was “building my brand” and this conference would be my springboard to awesomeness. But as I met more beautiful amazing writers, and heard story after life changing story, I felt like a fraud. I realized I was not only out of my element, but that unless I make a change and define what it is I want to tell the world, my words will lose meaning and disappear into the growing filing cabinets of the internet.
I don’t want my brand to be ‘the shy geek chick behind the words’ … or do I? This is my struggle; THIS is what I was hoping to have figured out before I left Toronto.
I spent the train ride back to Ottawa writing the words: "Who am I, what is my message" over and over on my tablet screen hoping to get some inspiration. It was only when my friend Kat sent me this picture of myself and the great Amber Mac that I realized something.
There isn’t just one Tech Mummy, there are hundreds, and that’s Ok. Anyone who is reading this is reading this because they want to, not because they are being forced to.
I am building an audience, and to them my writing means something. (And I love you all for it!)
I’m sure even the smart, funny, beautiful Amber Mac (former Tech Mummy here by the way) has struggled with what will resonate with her audience. I’m sure she’s walked into rooms thinking she didn’t belong.
Our voices (especially female Tech types) should not be silenced. We have a generation of girls who feel lame, dumb, ugly and far from amazing that need to know they are stellar, brilliant, beautiful and beyond amazing. Every one of us has a message, and it’s up to us to figure out what it is and who it is for.
I can’t change the way my hair flips up on the left, or the fact that I have bags under my eyes that rival Deputy Dog, but what I can and will change is that hopefully, if I’m lucky enough to be sitting on a panel some day, that I will have the courage to spread my message so that someone else in the crowd feels empowered to do the same when their time comes.
I won’t sit back and hide behind my words anymore, and hopefully in a few years, a new writer will be standing beside me after my panel at Blissdom, and someone will take a picture and then blog about it.
Then, I know that my writing meant something.
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