Showing my new self to me

I've had such a crisis of confidence in myself as a beekeeper.  It has confused everybody - Tom, Peter, the Association, and me.  Why do I have so little faith in my own abilities?  Why do I always feel awkward asking for help?  Why can't I just accept it when people give me help and gifts, unasked, just because they want to? 

I have spent the past couple of years working with my bees by myself and it has been lovely.  I have loved every solitary, quiet moment alone with them.  But I've always known that beekeeping can't really be done alone.  You need people; you need other beeks to exchange knowledge, tools, bees and equipment - you need it to help the bees survive.

I have no problem with bees;  it seems that all my difficulties stem from my problem with people.  I'm so tangled up in my own insecurities, my mistrust of people's intentions, my defensiveness and my desperate need to be self-reliant, my discomfort in asking for help and appearing vulnerable and incompetent. 

So now I am out in the world again, no longer a lone beek.  I am surrounded by other beeks - experts, novices and amateurs like me.  I always knew it would be a difficult transition.  I never realised quite how revealing it would be - showing my new self to me - how I have changed in the past difficult years.  I never realised how difficult I am finding it to get on with other people, to socialise, mingle and share.  I have become more solitary than ever, more irritable, more shy, more ...  Well, perhaps it's more a case that I am becoming more me - the same as I ever was, just less hidden, more revealed.

It seems my bees have more to teach me than mere beekeeping.  As always, I am grateful for the sense of magic and revelation that they offer me.