introvert musings

I am a classic introvert. Always have been. Nothing ambiguous here.

My mother says when I was two-years-old she used to come and try to get me after my naps. I would be awake in my crib, talking/playing contentedly. Upon seeing her enter the room I would flail and yelp, “No!” and Mom, hands up in surrender, would back out of the room and give me another hour of “alone time.” Yes, even at two I needed that space. (None of my three kids inherited this, unfortunately.)

As a young girl I loved hanging out with friends, but I reached my limits pretty quickly. I preferred one-on-one, close friendships over big groups of girls. However, since I went to a tiny school where there weren’t a lot of kids, I never struggled socially until high school.

High school, with its larger class sizes, bells ringing, crowded halls, and noisy lunchroom made me anxious and tired. I found myself checking out mentally, longing for the day to be over, when I could retreat to the car, and get home to the farm where I could walk, read, and just “be.”

Maybe I am an extreme case, or maybe I have just learned to self-reflect and accept that the “sorority girl/dorm room life” was never going to be something I would thrive in. Large parties are not my thing (too loud, too chaotic, too much small talk.)

Family gatherings have always been triggering for me. I remember hiding in my older cousins bedrooms and reading their (too mature for me) novels with the door shut, the din of laughter and conversation pleasantly shut out.

Even as an adult I still find time at family holiday gatherings to retreat to a quiet bedroom to rest or read — or if I am back at my childhood home visiting my parents, a hobby farm in Minnesota, no one is surprised when I put on my running shoes and walk the perimeter of the 11 acre property for an hour or so, daydreaming and enjoying the peace of solitude.

Do you know someone like this? They are not weird or shy…they just are an introvert, probably highly sensitive to stimuli.

I don’t think I’m shy or anti-social. I will speak my mind, be adventurous, and have a very loud voice, actually. (I get lots of stares from Dutch people here in the Netherlands when out to dinner, chatting with friends or even just my husband, when my voice reaches an excited level.)

Sometimes, yes, I wish I could be more of what the world views as “normal.” We are praised if we can stand out in a crowd, multi-task in chaos, be “popular” (as in, have lots of friends / quantity over quality) and now in the social media age there is this push to have lots of “online friends” – who will give you lots of “likes.”

As an introvert I have to keep myself in check. While I love social media in so many ways, sharing my life and journey while not having to have constant face-to-face interaction, it can still get overwhelming with the pressure to respond quickly. Sometimes my phone can seem as loud and demanding as one of my three loud blonde children! I have to set it aside, tell myself that it can wait, it can sit, until I’ve recharged my introvert battery enough to give thoughtful responses.

Can you relate to any of this? Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, if you love this topic or simply struggle relating to the opposite of what you are, you will probably enjoy the book Quiet by Susan Cain. I’ve been reading it in bits for a while and finally finished on our flight back from Spain yesterday. So good from start to finish!