The most viscerally terrifying experience that I had this year: reading ‘Lost Boy’ for BlogHer’s Community Keynote. It was awesome and wonderful and all those things that one expects from feeling one’s fear and doing it anyway, but I was as terrified as I have ever been in my life.

Mine is near the end, so if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, you’ll have to forward to about 15 minutes shy of the end. Or you could just read the original post here, and imagine me sobbing my way through it.

More than one person – more than twenty people – said to me after the fact, that must have felt good, to express all of that, to get it all out. I said, each and every time that was suggested: good is not quite the right word. It felt terrifying.

But, but: terrifying has its rewards. I was afraid, and I did it anyway, and that? Was a rush, the very best kind.

(This post is part of the Best Of 2009 blog challenge issued by the lovely Gwen Bell. Today’s challenge: recall the best/greatest rush you experienced this year. This was mine.)