After my TikTok Live, where I was as nervous as can be, my friend told me that I needed to talk less about my book and be more personable. How does one go about being more personable when you’re talking to quite literally yourself? It was by far one of the most awkward situations in my life, and there is quite the history of awkward situations in my past.

There was the one time when I was getting dressed in the dark because I didn’t want to turn on the light and wake up my husband. When I got to work, I looked down and had on two different boots on my feet: one was black, and the other was brown. That was an awkward moment.

Another time, I left my dance class late and forgot that I wasn’t wearing street shoes because I was late for my university class. When I made it to the university library, I realized I had to walk across the ceramic floor in tap shoes. With each step I took, there was a loud clacking sound that reverberated across the entire room. The lady at the information desk would cringe with each step I took; she could feel my embarrassment and the dilemma that I had made for myself.

But like these and the many more embarrassing, awkward moments that I have already experienced in my life, I will chalk the TikTok live up in that column and keep moving forward. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. So if making myself stronger means more TikTok lives to come, then I will continue to talk to myself. As awkward as the entire process is, I will strive to be more personable, and maybe, just maybe, I will find my own rhythm in the entire process.