I haven't spoken publicly since my wife died last year, and I had hoped to return to that this weekend by giving the opening keynote at BSides Greenville.
Unfortunately, I'm still not there yet and have had to withdraw from the conference. I tried incredibly hard, but I have so much anxiety now around preparing presentations and speaking in front of a live audience.
I used to speak 5-6 times a year in person on topics that I think are important to infosec. I'm unsure if I'll ever be able to do it again, and that's a bit frightening. Thankfully, my online teaching and writing aren't affected by whatever is broken with me here... so I'm continuing to focus on that, along with my research work.
That's a lot of vulnerability, but that's where I'm at. I want to apologize to the folks who were looking forward to my presentation. I also want to thank the conference organizers for their understanding and incredible support. I know it'll be a great conference, regardless. I'll keep working on getting this part of myself back.
