For those who don't know, I'm a very shy person. If anything, I'm the most timid person you'll ever know. And if I was one of the seven dwarfs, I'd be Bashful. Yes, people. Believe it or not, I was an introvert. Was being the operative word.
If you knew me back when I was 10 years old, you'd probably know me as the girl who sat in one corner of the room, not talking to anyone unless talked to. I was the girl who didn't feel comfortable to show off her talents. I was the kid who was the least bit confident about herself. At school, I rarely ventured out of my shell to chat with other students at mealtimes or before and after classes. I was so shy that I wouldn't even tell the nurse in the hospital that I was scared of injections (note: I am no longer afraid of needles).
And then came high school. I realized I was too comfortable in my own little world that not many people know who I really was. So I had to do something. I knew that if I didn't solve this problem, I'd have a problem in the future. So I joined school organizations. The school paper and the glee club, to be precise. Fortunately for me, it worked. Somehow, joining these organizations has helped me become more open to people, more sociable. Before I knew it, I've gained more friends than I could possibly imagine. What's even more surprising is that the name "Margie Francisco" was starting to catch on to other batches.
When I got to college, I realized I have stepped into a whole different world. College was more challenging to be sociable. Then again, to my surprise, everybody was starting to know who I was. The "legend of Margie" started the moment I became a class representative in first year. Soon, they knew me as the neophyte feature writer who wrote a great article on the new dean of student affairs. The rookie writer would become the eventual editor-in-chief of the school paper. Students and teachers alike knew me as the "girl who gets sent to numerous seminars and conferences to represent the school." With that hanging over my head, I was able to be more outgoing, more assertive, more poised than I was before.
Of course, now that I work in a magazine, it helps that I got to be the way I am today. I wouldn't be able to do my job if I wasn't that much confident. But hey, there's still that part of me that is shy. Yes, I'm still soft-spoken at times. I'm still the discreet type of girl. What I'm trying to say is that I was able to transform from this very coy little girl who didn't know how to fit in...into a young lady who discovered that being shy is never going away and waiting for an "extreme" extrovert to befriend me is not an option. I became this young lady who was successfully shy.
Hmm...I wonder if Jesus Christ had shy people in mind when He said, "Blessed are the meek."
With everything accounted for, I've learned that being shy has its strengths and weakness. Truth be told, there are days I wish I'm more extrovert that I can be. But then again, I love being the shy type.
Yes, I was a very shy person back then.
Now...
I am proud to say that I am less shy than I was before.
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