This is more of a “my failings” than “anything else” kind of post.
I’m not the most observant Jew, but I’d consider myself a decently-good one who tries relatively well to hew to the practices of Conservative Judaism.
For those of you who are long-time readers, you know that I’m a gabbai at my synagogue. I spend a Saturday morning, every few weeks, up on the bimah at my congregation, helping to run the Torah reading. I find it very rewarding – not perhaps as rewarding as I find reading a portion myself, but certainly involving less of my personal time at home trying to prep for participating in the service, and certainly less nerve-wracking when one bears in mind that I have extreme stage fright, even after reading Torah for nearly thirty years.