Late. Again.

There’s a reason this blog is called The Late Arrival.

A few weeks back, my daughter and I went to church. We were a few minutes, well…late. I felt weird stares; and indignantly, hurriedly, I plopped down anyway. Five minutes later, the pastor asked the congregation to rise for the prayer and dismissal.

See what I mean?

One late night, the call for writing submissions for the Type-A Parenting Conference’s We Still Blog Awards appeared on my Facebook feed. I clicked the link, read the prestigious bios of the people judging the pieces and figured Yeah right, like this’ll happen. Meh…what have I got to lose. At least I can say I tried. I pressed “Submit” and forgot about it.

Until nearly a month later on another late night. An email congratulated me on being one of ten finalists selected.

Oh no. Really? This is all kinds of wrong. This can’t be right. Could it? It was.

Then later I perused the blogs of the other finalists…and FREAKED. Their websites were beautiful, clean and professional. They were professionals – writers and published authors -- for crying out loud! They are who I want to be when and if I grow up someday.

They are: 

Kristin Shaw of Two Cannoli

Nichole E. of Butterscotch Sundae

Cindy Reed of The Reedster Speaks

Christina McMenemy of A Mommy Story

Trey Burley of Daddy Mojo

Miranda Wicker of Finding Walden

Julia Roberts of Kidneys and Eyes

Tara Pohlkotte of The Pohlkotte Press

Lisa Allen of Back to Allen

Rather than chance Jamie and Georgia not handling things on their own (because of course everything will fall apart without me), I went to the conference for the day.

Just one day.
The last day.
As in the very last day of the conference.
As in my flight landed within hours of the final keynote.

Late.

When you’re perpetually late – especially in group settings -- you miss a lot of things. In this case it was the rich menu of presentations, seminars, speakers and even parties. I missed those things and wish I could turn the clock back so I could have arrived for the entire conference and applied new-found knowledge to this seedling of a blog.

Time-challenged people also miss things at gatherings like developing friendships, camaraderie, exchanged glances that cause spontaneous giggles, secret-telling and brain-sharing.

Listen, I’m a natural introvert, so I never miss missing this people/bonding stuff; I mean I’m not looking to make new friends.

But something about this conference and the whole vibe was different; and from my tardy perspective, the difference was the people -- including the finalists who had once intimidated me so.

We Still Blog Award Finalists

There was a feeling of openness, acceptance and support -- not just of me -- but also of my words. It was familiar...like I had been there, known these people before.

So much so that this introvert even caught the conference close-out party...and even danced.

Post-Party Dancing Toes

I ended up walking away with the very things I was missing but never knew I was missing. At Type-A, they call it “finding your tribe” and I think I found my tribe...

...at least some of them. There are more out there and I know it, and I’m going to find them at next year’s conference which I’ll be attending all three days, instead of as

The Late Arrival.