introversion – Live Now and Zen

Have Happy Place, Will Travel

by MeFebruary 14, 2022Leave a comment

Over my years of blogging here, I have minced no words when it comes to my disdain for Valentine’s Day. I think it is ridiculous. A holiday, dreamt up in cooperation by the greeting card, candy, and flower industries, that makes people either feel bad or stress out. That said, I do buy cards and candy for my husband and sons because they like those things and I like them. I also do send simple greetings to my most treasured friends because I love them and I don’t always remember to tell them that.

As a rule, my husband and I exchange cards. I do not want or expect gifts on this day. Truth be told, receiving gifts is not part of my love language. I would much rather my husband take my car to get the oil changed or drop things off at Goodwill to show me he loves me. Actions speak louder to me than words. Acts of service make sense to me when it comes to showing someone you love them. If I cook your dinner, wash your underwear, and pick up after your messes, I love you. I won’t do those things for just anyone.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I walked into the closet this afternoon after my morning’s worth of errands and found this:

This is my happy place. In actuality, a hammock is my happy place, be it in a park, at a campground, on a beach under a palm tree, or in the country. Somewhere peaceful, where I can enjoy the surrounding views and the blue sky while swaying ever so gently in repose. A seat where my mind, busy with all its overthinking, can take a few moments of respite while I practice my skills at being a human being rather than a human doing. This is everything.

It was apropos that Steve hung this in our closet because that is where I meditate (don’t judge…it’s quiet and no one goes in there). It is also where I go when I am stressed and need to take a pause to breathe and get ready to face life again. I have been in our closet more than usual lately. In the absence of a shady, quiet spot where I can float in a hammock, I will totally use this visual reminder of my happy place in our closet. It will work just fine in between times when I can be in the mountains or a park or on a beach staring at the sky.

Every single day I am grateful for my husband who has given me every good thing in my life and always allowed me space to grow and be the introverted nutball I am. Marriage certainly has its ups and downs, but there are decidedly less of those when you are married to someone who truly gets you.

If Valentine’s Day is your special day, I hope you have a great one. If, like me, this day is just another day on the calendar to you, I hope you get to spend it with people who know how to make your happy place appear when you need it most.

The One Where You Realize Your Mom Is Darth Sidious

by MeOctober 5, 2021Leave a comment

My son texted me from college today and told me he had gotten a couple oddly specific text messages from numbers he didn’t recognize. The messages both made reference to his location at college, as well as his first and last name. He was a little weirded out by them, which is understandable because this had never happened to him before. I told him they were likely from someone he knows who is messing with him. He doubted my assessment. I asked for both numbers and told him I would do some sleuthing.

I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. My plan after I earned my bachelor’s degree was to become a research librarian. And I might have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids. Okay. Okay. You’re right, Scooby Doo. It wasn’t meddling kids that kept me from my research dream; it was the exorbitant cost of graduate school for a young woman who was already in debt after putting herself through college. But while my husband was in graduate school a few years later, I got a job at his school putting together information packets about the companies recruiting on campus. I knew my way around a library and around the burgeoning Internet. I love gathering information. I have all the necessary skills. With a BA in English Literature and an MS in Writing, I have spent an overabundance of time doing research for academic papers. Beyond that, I am deeply curious about all manner of subjects. And I am determined and undaunted like a border collie going after sheep. Just get out of my way and let me go to work.

So, I did. With the numbers he gave me, my first stop was a reverse phone look up on beenverified.com. The first number came right up. I took a screen shot and sent it to my son. It was someone he had traveled with in high school. The second number did not have immediate results, so it was likely unlisted. Knowing the result of the first search, however, I consulted the directory for his high school to see if there were any numbers listed from that area code. There weren’t. So, I did what I had to. I blocked my number and called the second number. A kid answered my blocked call, said “Hey, baby,” and then promptly hung up. Nothing to see here. Case closed. I told my son he should reply to the first message with the kid’s name and his home address (which I had gotten from the directory). He said I was evil. I sent him a GIF of Darth Sidious from Star Wars because, well, Sidious and I have some things in common beyond our wrinkles. He mentioned again that I’m terrifying and that he really doesn’t trust the Internet. I told him he shouldn’t, but the thing is it works both ways. Someone can dig around and find information about you, and you can often do the same about them. Everyone leaves a trail, some are just easier to follow.

My son has referred to me as a “stalker” because of my gift for unearthing information. He came to this conclusion earlier this summer. He had stayed with a friend outside of Seattle and wanted to send her a gift as a thank you, but didn’t know her address. She does not have the same last name as her mother or step father, so he couldn’t just look it up in a phone book. He also didn’t want to ask her for it because he was hoping to surprise her. I told him I could help him out if he told me what info he was starting with. He knew the street her mother lived on but not the house number. After a quick Facebook search, a Google Map view of the street for reference, and then an online phone book search later, I handed him the address. It put the fear of god into him. He knows he has no secret I could not unearth if I felt so compelled. Luckily for him, I respect his privacy. And, while I am a good detective, as a die-hard introvert, I am not nosey. I don’t care about most people enough for that.

Still, it’s important your children know your powers. You don’t want to mess with your mother when you know she and Darth Sidious share an evil genius and a penchant for getting what they want.

The Road To Slightly Less Cranky

by MeSeptember 12, 2021Leave a comment

A few months back, I bought my son and I some tickets to a concert tickets. A five-band extravaganza happening today. It had been so long since I had concerts on the books, and I was excited to be adding them again. For this particular concert, however, the ticket purchase per household was two. When I told my husband that I was planning to take Luke to the show, he felt a bit left out. I told him maybe I could find a friend or family member who could buy a ticket and transfer it to us, but he said he was fine with it. Luke and I could go.

Yesterday, though, I realized that a full day at a concert venue means venue food, most of which I cannot eat because of my dietary restrictions, which currently include no gluten, dairy, corn, soy, or sugar. Translation: no food for me for the entirety of the day. Which, if you know me, is no bueno because I get downright cranky when I am hungry. I didn’t want to be ruining Luke’s day with my poor attitude. And I didn’t want to eat prohibited foods because they would make me feel horrific. So, I told Steve he should take Luke. I assured him this was the right decision.

It wasn’t until after I’d made the decision to send Steve in my place that it dawned on me that this new arrangement would mean I would have the entire house to myself for the entire day on football Sunday. Say whaaat? It’s been a while since I’ve had alone time in our lovely home. The pandemic has made sure of that. My husband has been working from home full-time since March of last year. It’s made for some touch-and-go moments in this family. It’s not a good idea to force your introvert into a house filled with constant company for seventeen months. It’s made me sort of grumpy and sort of crazy. Okay. Okay. It’s made me sort of grumpy and completely crazy. I can admit it.

After they departed for the show around 2:30, I turned on football (minus the volume), pre-ordered an heirloom tomato salad for takeout, and sat down on the couch to enjoy some much needed alone time. It’s so quiet in the house, I can hear the clock ticking in the kitchen. It’s heavenly. And although the Bills lost (dammit), I’m glad I made this choice. It works great for Steve and Luke. They hit a taco place they love before heading to the show and they will undoubtedly enjoy the plethora of junk food available to them over the evening. And I will enjoy my tomato salad, a glass of wine, a walk with the dog, and a peaceful Sunday night at home.

My wish is that over the next couple years the pandemic might come under control and perhaps we can return to life as it was before March of 2020. While one night at home alone won’t suddenly transform me into a less cranky wife and mother, it’s a good start.

The Church Of The Blue FJ Cruiser

by MeAugust 30, 20212 Comments

I like road trips. I enjoy driving, but I also like being a passenger. I like waking up in one state and going to sleep in another. This is why I volunteer for these cross-country road trips. Today, after saying goodbye to Thing One, I drove almost 600 miles from southern Washington to Salt Lake City. And I discovered something I hadn’t realized before. I mean, other than the fact that Idaho is too damn big when you just want to be home. I like to road trip alone at least in part because it is an opportunity to listen to all my favorite music, sing along, and have zero responsibilities other than arriving at my destination safely.

During the course of my day, I checked my messages at various rest stops. What I discovered is that extroverts think road trips are an excuse to have phone conversations with you. I had three phone messages from different extroverted, social friends and family members telling me that they were calling to keep me company while I drive. The first time I heard the recorded message offering to chat with me to keep me company, I laughed out loud. Do these people not know me at all? I don’t like to talk on the phone to begin with. I find talking on the phone while driving a distraction. And I especially think it’s a distraction when what you are distracting me from is the mental peace and quiet that comes with listening to my car stereo loudly enough that the speakers audibly vibrate. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get me out of my head for a few minutes? A solo road trip day is my introvert church. It’s disrespectful to call someone when you know they are at church.

If you weren’t sure about the drought conditions, this is what eastern Oregon looks like right now

Nothing but wildfire haze as far as the eye can see, which isn’t that far

Treat Your Thoughts Like Clouds

by MeAugust 14, 2021Leave a comment

Art credit to @phoebenewyork, photo by Elizabeth Schoettle

A friend posted this artwork to her Instagram this morning. This art piece sums up what I am working to achieve for myself through therapy and meditation. I strive to get to a place where I am able to put space between my thoughts about reality and reality itself. The thing about being a thought-filled introvert is that I spend a lot of time in my brain. My brain, unfortunately, was wired from a young age to view pretty much anything having to do with my appearance, my personality, my choices, and my desires negatively. I am working hard to acknowledge that my thoughts can be like a funhouse mirror, distorting reality and leaving me feeling horrible about myself without sufficient evidence to back up that view. So, the idea of treating my thoughts as clouds, recognizing that they come and go and take shape and lose shape because they are fluid and not at all concrete, is genius.

Like many people, for most of my life I have let my thoughts run away with me without understanding I can control them. When a negative or fearful or self-defeating thought pops into my head, what happens to it depends on my reaction to it. Say I look into a mirror and think, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you look like hell,” I have a choice how I react to that thought. I can let that thought define me and spend the rest of my day self-conscious and sad, with that thought gaining more weight and getting heavier the more I pay attention to it, so that by the end of the day that cloud says, “Your best days are over. You should just go crawl in a hole where no one has to look at you.” I do have another option, though, which is to do some cloud busting. I can reply to that funhouse thought with a hearty “No one believes that, and neither should you,” and move on with my day unencumbered by that knee-jerk, knuckle-headed self talk.

My attitude towards my thoughts creates the difference between a quiet, sunny day with light cirrus clouds and a tumultuous, dark day punctuated by growing cumulonimbus storm clouds. So my task is to put some air space between myself and my thought clouds and to accept that my thoughts don’t always know what they are saying. Many times my thoughts are way off base. The faster I am able to acknowledge that my negative thoughts are just thoughts and not necessarily reflective of reality, the better job I can do clearing them from my head and making room for better thoughts, creative thoughts, thoughts filled with self-love.

Eventually, I hope to become a more effective cloud buster. I would love to be able to set my thought griefcase down and work on sunnier self-reflections.

Virtual Postcards From My Covid-19 Vacation

by MeMarch 30, 20201 Comment

“So happy I was invited, gave me a reason to get out of the city…you and your sister live in a Lemonworld.” ~The National

6B99CB3B-1EC4-4621-A1AD-A5D6792D78C5 — At my house in Lemonworld

Our current, shared reality is, well, lackluster at best and terrifying at worst. As the number of Covid-19 deaths climbs and our world economy tanks, as the jobless claims skyrocket and citizens are sidelined at home, it’s getting downright difficult to maintain sanity. Although it was just a month ago I was looking forward to travel plans and finding plentiful packages of toilet paper during my Target runs, March seems to have lasted a lifetime since those halcyon days before the virus became everything. I find myself missing the annoyance of politics and the grind of everyday nonsense.

I had been doing my dogged best to write both to process the gravity of our situation and to bolster my flagging spirit. Writing, as it had been for me in the past, was becoming my escape, providing a sense of accomplishment and belonging. It was bringing me peace. It was my way of reaching out from my increasingly isolated, introvert world. Writing was all those things. And then suddenly it wasn’t because I found a better way out of my head.

I took a trip. I boarded a plane and now I’m on an island, basking in the sunlight, listening to the surf, and keeping myself plenty busy. I belong to the Animal Crossing world now. For the uninitiated, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game exclusively for the Nintendo Switch console. My son downloaded the game on March 20th, its release date, a day when the virus news hit a sobering crescendo with the US State Department urging Americans to return home from abroad and Italy’s coronavirus death toll surpassing China’s. For a week, Joe played the game and showed me the sweet, wholesome world on his screen. It didn’t look like a bad place to be, so I decided to join him. Now I live on Lemonworld.

15C8D0D2-48F2-4A3C-BCD9-360A4185FF4B_1_201_a — Game fishing accomplishment

It’s been a whirlwind. I arrived here last Thursday afternoon. I settled into my tent and then began pulling weeds and gathering wood to raise funds for a house because my tent camping days are behind me. On Friday, I learned how to fish, determined how to shoot down gifts attached to helium balloons with my slingshot, and discovered that eating cherries gave me more energy to break rocks with my axe. I moved into my small cottage home, which I was able to pay off immediately because I am so industrious with my gathering and fishing and selling. Being a dutiful community member, I also began making donations to open a local museum. That same day, however, I made the horrific discovery that tarantulas live on my island. Of course they do because even peaceful tropical islands have their drawbacks. That first night, I got bitten and passed out three times because of those damn spiders. Hello, learning curve. Still, this island was beginning to feel like home and the spiders only come out at dusk, so I told Tom Nook, the tropical-garb wearing, raccoon dog fellow who brought me to the island, I was here for the long haul and thus ready to move into a bigger home.

A783CEC9-C308-45A8-A446-E2DF941932C2_1_201_a — Visiting the Lemonworld Museum to see the coelacanth I donated

Yesterday, the spring skies opened up and it poured all day. Relentlessly determined to pay off my new, larger home (you have to catch a lot of fish to raise 198k bells — bells, you see, are the island currency), I spent my rainy day traipsing up and down the beaches trying to catch large fish I could sell to grow my bank account. I hit paydirt. On one of my expeditions, I reeled in an oarfish. Not long after that, I caught a rare coelacanth. While those fish would have netted me quite a handsome sum, I donated both to the museum because science is important. Ultimately, over the course of a long, active day, I was able to save up the full amount for my upgrade. I prefer to live debt free in paradise.

This game has been the perfect escape from these troubled times. Not only has it relieved me of infinite time to read news and perseverate over social media posts, but it has given me purpose and a sense of accomplishment (at least virtually). My sons both have the game now, and we can visit each other’s islands. Yesterday, my husband ordered himself a Switch, so soon all four of us will have an island getaway. The boys may have missed their spring break trip to Cuba, and Steve and I won’t be hanging with the stingrays on Grand Cayman in April, but at least we can still vacation together while trapped in our home. The only thing missing on my island, as far as I can tell, are pina coladas. Wonder if I can get my little raccoon dog buddy to bring me one of those?

4DDA485A-5152-4DD5-AB6A-DF5A0BDFBA05 — Soaking up the sun and listening to the surf in my happy place

The Almighty Queen of Awkwardness Retains Her Crown…for now

by MeMarch 1, 20183 Comments

My introvert view from the safety as extroverts chat upstairs

I am an introvert. This is a well-documented, incontrovertible fact. For years, I have used my status as introvert to avoid uncomfortable social situations because, well, they’re uncomfortable. This is because I am the most awkward woman who has ever lived. I am certain of this. You only think you are more awkward than I am. You are wrong. Through therapy, I have been working to overcome some of the self-imposed boundaries that have arisen because of my social ineptitude. You see, through my claim to the title Almighty Queen of Awkwardness I claimed a second, slightly lower title, the Self-Ordained Princess of Seemingly Legitimate Excuses by which to Avoid Entanglements. My titles are cumbersome in more ways than one.

One place I have decided to work on for my personal growth is at our sons’ school. The boys have been at Denver Academy nearly two full years now. In that time, we have met and spoken more than once with only two other sets of parents. Two. In two years. This is what happens when an introvert marries another introvert. The only reason we have two as our number is because these parents reached out to us. Otherwise, we would be sitting at zero new acquaintances.

Last Friday, the school held a fundraiser, a ping-pong tournament dubbed The Paddle Battle. We attended this last year with friends because we didn’t want to show up alone. During the ping-pong battle, my friend, Lynne, and I huddled in a corner near the lost-and-found box swilling wine. She was courageous enough to talk to another family. Meanwhile, I held my plastic wine cup like it was anchoring me to earth while I avoided eye contact by staring into the box of found hoodies, water bottles, and a lonely shoe. This year I decided to challenge myself by actively participating in the actual playing of the ping pong.

With a glass of wine consumed, I met my opponent and stepped up to the table. I worked hard to avoid complete decimation. A couple times during the game play, I attempted to start a conversation with the gentleman, only to be met with no response. I realized eventually he couldn’t hear me over the noise in the atrium and decided to be okay with the fact that I was talking across a table to a person who had no idea was talking. Nothing awkward about that. Meanwhile, I continued my nervous, audible-only-to-myself chatter the entire game as I chased the ball. The game ended with my five-point loss, a respectable showing for someone without table-tennis prowess. The gentleman approached me for a sportsmanlike handshake. I was holding the ball in my right hand and, for some inexplicable reason, instead of moving the ball to my left hand for a proper handshake, I extended my left hand. This led to a generally weird situation in which neither one of us knew the protocol. He at last grabbed my left hand for a cursory shake while I mumbled something about needing to put the ball somewhere safe for the next players. As he walked off to put his name in for the next round, I imagined he was looking forward to playing someone more athletically skillful and socially adept. I did a mental face palm for being such a colossal dork and went for another glass of wine to console myself.

While some battle, some execute a normal handshake

Being a classic overthinker, I’ve reflected on that evening a few times since Friday night, endeavoring to convince myself that perhaps I didn’t come off as a complete moron. After all, every person feels awkward occasionally. It’s a universally human experience. Most of us spend at least some time second guessing words we’ve uttered or actions we’ve taken when we’ve felt out of our element. It’s possible my opponent found my handshake foible more charming than ridiculous or might not have registered it at all. And, in the end, why does it matter when I improved upon my actions from last year by stepping out of my boundaries and participating rather than spectating? Get over yourself.

I am working hard to bring balance to the Force in my life by acknowledging that while I have a few less-than-impressive qualities, my good qualities are weightier. Last Friday, I took a step forward. Maybe the experience wasn’t as smooth as I had expected, but that’s okay. Baby steps, right? When Luke graduates in 2022 and throws off the confines of high school, I might too graduate, at last setting aside my mantle as Almighty Queen of Awkwardness for a more appropriate title. Maybe by then I will know myself only as the Almighty Queen of Awesomeness. If I’m going to envision myself as queen, perhaps it should be as the queen of something great.