Introverts

I was talking with an introvert friend the other day.  My understanding is that the term is all about where you get your energy:  from solitude or from other people.   Or, conversely, it's all about what drains your energy.

Is it possible to be  part introvert, part extrovert?  On my OkCupid profile, I claim to be a closet introvert.  Most people think of me as an extrovert, but years of working with the public drained my energy, and I needed vast amounts of alone time to replenish.  Now, however, I have all the alone time I could ask for, and I still seem to be fatigued, and I still want to hole up in my room.  I'm trying to figure out if it's a mental or physical issue.  

I am looking up

Symptoms of diabetes.

I have half of them.

We were talking about this because I'm very lonely, and I don't know what to do with that.  Yes, I know I've written about this a LOT, but it's still rearing its ugly head.  People don't have time for me and I feel rejected, but I can't blame them. I feel unattractive and unnecessary.  I don't want to force my unhappy self on other people, but I don't want to be alone either.  I have heard all my life that, to be attractive or lovable, you have to love yourself. I still don't know what that means.  It's almost like blaming the victim:  it's your own damn fault no one wants to be around you.  Well, gee, that makes me feel a whole lot better.  So....all I have to do is take my unlovable self and be confident that my unlovable self is really lovable?  How does that alchemy work?

So, I started thinking about personality traits. What is it about me that can be attractive?  What makes me want to get up in the morning and live in my skin?  How do I build self-confidence?  Is it something innate, or something that can be created?  And thus, back to the question of extroversion vs introversion.

One would think that confidence is part of being an extrovert, but lovability is clearly not restricted to the extroverts.  My friend is very lovable, after all.  And extroverts can just be annoying sometimes.  They seem to be all about self.  In fact,  I remember editing an article by an introvert customer service person.  It was illuminating:  the thesis was that you often provide better service if you are an introvert, because you take yourself out of the equation and really focus on the other person.  There is no bigger attractant than someone's undivided attention.

However, that doesn't seem to be the answer, either.  Here's what thesaurus.com has to say about introverts:
noun:  person who retreats mentally

• wallflower
• brooder
• egoist
• egotist
• loner
• narcissist
• solitary

Wow.  How do you go from being solitary to being a narcissist?  I would never have thought an introvert was an egotist.  On the other hand, a brooder does have that tendency.

Quietly watching

Clouds rolling in, birds flitting.

Am I brooding?

Extroverts don't sound great, either, though:

noun:   sociable person  (okay, that's nice) but.....

• character
• exhibitionist
• show-off
• showboat
• gregarious person
• life of the party

There seem to be some similar traits in the two lists:  egotism and showing-off for example.  Both are exceedingly unattractive.  However, the synonyms certainly point out the bias in favor of extroverts.  I think most people would find a sociable person to be more attractive than one who retreats mentally.  And there just isn't much in the introvert list that you'd want to be around.

And now I think I understand my problem.  I AM an introvert.  I need to be solitary, to think (brood if you will), to figure things out.  And that is unattractive to a large part of our culture. So, my game face is that of an extrovert.  And that is unattractive to me.

It's time to turn my back on the whole thing and remember what my friend A said, in the aftermath of her divorce to a charismatic, arrogantly brilliant scholar.  The very things that attracted her to him were the things that made him unlivable, not to mention unlovable.  And she retreated to a Henry James quote:  "Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind."

And the kindness has to be to myself, as well.

Bell Jar times

I was reading a new book, The Man in the Empty Suit.  In it, the protagonist/narrator is a time traveler who returns to the same dissolving hotel in the same empty city every year to celebrate his birthday with his former and future selves.  The Youngsters and Oldsters are in a perpetual game to learn the future and protect the past, and none of them like where they've been and where they are going.  It's funny, and I hope the author's attempt to play with paradoxes doesn't get too annoying.  But that's not what I want to write about....

In one toss-off comment about the future, he refers to spending time with "sad and lovely Sylvia."  Plath, of course.  Serendipitously, she is mentioned in another new book I am reading, Forty-one False Starts, a book of essays about artists and writers (very fun to read, btw.  I got sucked in by the essay entitled "Salinger's cigarettes" and stayed for the rest.)

So, when I was looking in my brain for a metaphor for my current emotions, I thought of The Bell Jar. Of course, that was Plath's metaphor for madness, but I don't have to descend that deeply to resonate to it.  The sense of being cut off from the world around you, observing but unconnected, numb and alone, surrounded by stale uncirculating air....that still fits.  Another metaphor that fits is Christopher Isherwood's, "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."  Except, he plans to take all these images and DO something with them.  Develop them, fix them.

The images work, but I'm neither mad nor creative.  I'm....disconnected.  For example, I was driving to work yesterday after visiting my bank, and I took a wrong turning.  I found myself going west for a few blocks, then making a break south for the Lead/Coal Corridor, only to be stuck in the dead-end maze of the University.  Circle back, go west a few more blocks, go south, get mazed.  And on and on, for a good 20 minutes.  A normal person would either be annoyed or pull over to check a map.  Or both.

I continued my dysfunctional process, watching the cars, the wind-blown trees, the dusty horizon.  Feeling the sun heating the air around the car while the a/c blew cool on my arms. Listening to the rock on the radio, sometimes even singing along.  I was aware of everything, but none of it was reaching my thinking, feeling, functioning brain.  It was all sensory input that seemed to have no connection with the person inside.  In fact, I wasn't sure there was a person inside.  The mere act of noticing the disconnect does not a person make.

It's an old problem.  Be here now, check.  Move forward, check.  Live authentically, check.  But how?  Rambling about my feelings doesn't make them real.  Scheduling things with friends doesn't make me connected to anyone.  Learning and doing new things doesn't add up to a life.

I think about my relationships.  I have left the friends who know and accept me for the flawed, annoying person I am.  It is easy to call them, to do things with them, to not do things with them.  It's comfortable.  There's no implied rejection, no feeling that I am importuning them.  That is not the case with the nascent relationships here, all less than a year old.  I am not important to any of these people;  if I moved tomorrow they would not care.  I initiate activities, and feel like they are just humoring me:  they don't reciprocate, they just go along.  Of course, that's not totally true:  just yesterday I received 4 invitations to do things in the upcoming week.  But it's what I feel.  The ease of familiarity is lacking.  I'm still feeling them out, still not sure they want me around, still not comfortably connected.  I can't expect otherwise, of course. One year is not time enough for those bonds to form, especially when I'm going through traumatic change and am buried in my sorry self.  Who wants to be around that?  Not me.

When I married D,  I vowed to delight in his quirks.  Subtext, he'd damned well better delight in mine.  He didn't and most people don't.  Except, maybe, family.  After my father's passing, I wrote a paean of loss.  That tribute has disappeared (where?  on a thumb drive or CD back in Portland?), but I remember one sentence clearly, "I will never again have a person in my life who delights in me so wholeheartedly."

On Father's Day I found myself reading Dad's old WWII journal from his time on the USS Navarro.  My sister E had transcribed it years ago.  It was full of one-sentence entries, cryptic abbreviations, and repetition.  "Listened to Radio Tokyo.  Japs in the hills.  Still in harbor.  Went to the canteen for ice cream and coke."  But, laconic as the journal was, I heard my Dad's voice.  He never wrote long letters, and they were mainly a series of bald statements:  no description, no commentary.  And somehow, they were interesting, probably because Dad was interesting, and whatever he chose to mention was worth paying attention to.  You don't need to prattle on endlessly to make your point...a lesson I have yet to put to use.

I miss sharing my life with him, I miss having a life worth sharing.  And I'm tired of that friggin' bell jar.

It's never too late, right?

Tonight I went to the Hiland Theatre to watch the NDI Winter Escape performance.  It was a mix of modern/athletic dance, tap, ballet, and Broadway, so it had something for everyone.  My favorite was the Alley Kats tap/funk troupe, especially when paired up with non-tap dancers.  There was no music to that number, so the tap provided the beat, and it was amazing how much variety they had at their disposal.

I had complimentary tickets, but, sadly, no one was able to join me.  Part of the reason was that my friends were busy with their lives, and I had a last-minute cancellation that couldn't get filled;  but I think a lot of it was that I wasn't able to really sell the program.  I had no idea what to expect, I just knew it was kids dancing, and my tickets were free.

Next time I'll pay for my tickets:  they deserve it.  And I'll put more enthusiasm into my offer.  I'm sorry that my friends missed out on this.  The dancing and music were both well worth it.   A lot of the music was canned, but there was some excellent jazz and piano accompaniment, some written specifically for the group.  It was incredibly moving to see these kids put on a professional-level show with joy and showmanship.  They had the skill, but more importantly, they had the heart.

I remembered my high school days:  it was such a small school, we all did a little of everything. Because of that, we never achieved the level of excellent that kids in big cities do.  But we did get a lot of exposure to the various options, if we chose it.   There were some road blocks, of course.  For example,  I never learned to dance, and I always felt like my size prohibited me from it.  Clearly, that was self-talk at its most destructive, and I was pleased to see that this group did not discriminate on the basis of size.

I'm glad I got myself out to see them.  I have a feeling that I need to become more comfortable with the concept of solo adventuring.  I can't wait for my friends to have the time or inclination to join me, and I can't depend on them to galvanize me.

It wasn't a slam dunk. I almost talked myself into staying home:  I don't feel well, I'm still sad,  I have things I need to take care of, I don't want to go out by myself and sit in an auditorium filled with kids and parents. Above all,  I don't want to emphasize to the world that I'm one of those pathetic lonely old ladies with no one to play with.

But then I looked at the map and saw that the venue was a 5 minute drive from my house.  I have done nothing productive all day, and I realized that I'd beat myself up for being a lump if I didn't put on a coat and Just Go.  So, I put on my coat and went.

Now I am beating myself up for not joining a dance class.  Yes, I know I can do it any time.  Yes, I know I'd like it.  Yes, I know I have both time and money enough to do this, and I'll feel better if I do. So, what is keeping me from it?   Aren't I past the point of expecting more of myself than I have to give?  Can't I allow myself to be mediocre?

Apparently not.  Instead, I get sad as I listen to well-loved music from my past and watch those girls who have focused their young minds and bodies into the pursuit of excellence.

Strong lovely girls dance

To the Bulgarian choir.

My throat closes up.

Being an Ostrich

I'm avoiding the computer, and I don't quite understand why, but I have some inklings. It's my main connection to the world outside my New Mexico life and it's also the main tool for organizing said life. Would I really rather just sit with my knitting and watch NCIS re-runs? Seems so. At any rate, the computer seems to have become my locus for ostrich behavior.

It's not as if I am avoiding everything. I've been here a month now. The work and people are becoming familiar to me. While I still don't have a landing spot in the library system, as of Friday I have an interim project (other than learning the similar-yet-different procedures and policies): I will be working on the RFID project. I met my partner on Friday and we interviewed the last 4 (out of 13) temp workers. We still don't know what the project really entails, but on Tuesday, when we are trained on the equipment, it will all fall into place. Hopefully. After all, how difficult can it be to organize placing RFID tags on every item in the system?

Despite the ever-changing job location, or maybe because of it, I am starting to get around without consulting Mapquest first. I know where the cheap parking lots are near the downtown library. Even better, I find myself singing along with the radio, watching for "my" mountains as I drive home, watching the clouds gather and disperse, noting the slant of light in the late afternoon.

It's an easy commute, regardless of where I'm going. The streets feel so wide and empty: blurts of traffic are followed by wide gaps, which gives me enough time to pull a U-turn at intersections when I find myself going the wrong way (and that still happens regularly.) I've left the Honda and its better gas mileage to D and have taken over the truck. It has manual steering and no pickup to speak of, and it's still easy enough to maneuver through traffic and onramps. I am developing a fondness for the frontage roads, but am not overly fearful of the highways.

Sadly, I was recently informed that I am living in a fool's paradise. Once school starts up in late August, travel time will triple in certain areas, and those spacious multi-lane hwys and main roads will fill up.

At least I'll get get my learning in while the traffic is manageable.

Discovery is the name of the game right now. I've found the classical radio station (which is so-so) and a terrific classic rock station (KIOT, pronounced Coyote.) My list of restaurants and things to do is growing and we actually had some friends over for dinner last week. The daily news focuses on the heat wave and the wildfires, and I'm starting to figure out where all those places are in relation to my home. I use the heat as an excuse to sit by the pool and read, and I've read 6 new books in the last 4 weeks.

From this perspective, it looks like I'm contentedly settling in. I have a routine and a comfortable place to be, both emotionally and physically. The finances are still a drag, but all the details are working themselves out, and D is very enthusiastic about his new job. I'm starting to lose a little weight and firm up a few muscles. I have a lot to be proud of and even more to enjoy about my life.

So, why am I still avoiding the computer? I started this post yesterday, after several hours of reading, cooking, and pool-sitting. I quit after 10 minutes, unable to sustain an interest in my own doings, unable to respond reasonably to my friends' postings and messages. I fought with D. When the BBQ with H got cancelled, I felt a familiar sinking feeling: I have no friends. Later, as D and I tried to get back on speaking terms, I broke down and sobbed, "I'm so lonely!"

Today's avoidance mechanism is different: I'm using the blog and FB to avoid taking care of business. In fact, I have spent 3 hours transcribing notes and tracking down links, when what I should be doing is paying my bills. And I'm wondering why I can't take care of myself and take care of business.  Why does my daily path seem to be a zigzag around things I just don't want to confront?  It seems no matter what I do, it isn't what I should be doing.

But maybe it's what I need to be doing.