Big Fish, Little Fish.

I wrote this directly after attending the Digital Parents Conference in Melbourne. I told you guys I would have an opposing post to the one I published earlier in the week, which was written early last week, and this is it. I still feel as strongly about the words in this post as I do about the words in the post earlier this week. Yes, hows that for confusing. Obviously this is where my mind has been at.

Image found here

I often don't ponder the size of my following or reach on this blog. I really do not. I know that I am no where near the size of some bloggers, I know there are bloggers who have been blogging longer who don't have the stats I do, but I know there are bloggers who have been blogging a lot less and have more than doubled my stats.
None of this makes me sad or bitter.

With my social anxiety, it's sometimes nice to be a "small blogger". I've watched bigger bloggers be pulled this way and that, put up on a pedestal and torn to shreds when they don't match up, when they show they are human.
I couldn't handle that. It would eat at me, it would hurt me to feel I've let someone down and for no less than being me.

Attending the recent conference has forced me to sit up and think about my place in the blogging world and the direction I want to move. I feel I am on a cusp, a cusp where I could chose to climb this cliff, it will be hard, but the cliff is there to climb, or that I could keep walking by.
What to do?

So many people came up to me to say hi, to introduce themselves, to let me know they "just had to meet you". Each time I stood there quite lamely my mind trying to process, looking around thinking 'Who are you talking to? It can't possibly be me, no one knows who I am.'
I am still struggling to process it, that I'm not just the plant in the corner of the room but rather an art canvas hanging on the wall that people stop to admire, some coming to see me, others stopping to wonder what work of art this is.
It is outstanding.
It is surreal to have this happen after a lifetime of being that plain boring plant that everyone knows is there but no one really sees, to something else.

I'm not sure where I'm at with it. I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm not sure where to take it. It's all so foreign.
It's almost feels too easy to slip back in the the familiar, it's safe there, not free from hurt, but a hurt I know. Can I ask for more? Can I do it? Can I handle if it come sliding down that cliff face?
Should I climb or amble on by?