Conversation Coward

I feel comfortable conversing with close family because I am not fearful of their impression of me on that particular day and know they really don’t mind listening to me repeat myself. I avoid, however, talking with people outside of my inner circle. Its not that I don’t want to talk about what is happening, I do. Its when the conversation flows to something other than cancer that I struggle. Simply put, since beginning chemo, I often cannot find words. It would be nice to see people, invite them to the house and enjoy them, but I would only feel truly comfortable doing so if I could warn them, thus giving me an excuse to blankly look at them like an old cow staring at a new gate. Now, don't get me wrong, I have wonderful friends who would blow off or maybe not even notice my inability to find words. I just happen be friends with intelligently funny hipsters who are engaging conversationalists. You may be reading this thinking, 'Laurie is paranoid', this online converstation is not troubling. Well, its taken me 40 mins to write this entry and 4 trips to thesaurus.com searching for words that communicate what I want to say. Maybe it would be better if I were dumbed down enough by chemo to not realize that I'm a dullard!