wallflower.

Today is a gloomy day, overcast with cold rain steadily falling. Someone wise pointed out that Christmas is next week. I have always felt at home on a gloomy day, not that I enjoy them per say, but I’m comfortable sitting still with a bit of gloom. I’m at ease being alone, tucked up in my home, quiet and brooding.

I wrote a letter last week, and it was only two pages long, but my hand cramped up toward the end - a vivid reminder that I haven’t been writing much of anything by hand lately. But I’m planning out my 2015-writing-challenge-for-one and it will mean getting back on track with my forlorn, empty notebook.

Can I tell you something about myself? I never want to go out. There’s always a part of me that wants to duck out of plans, that wants every evening and weekend to stretch on in comfortable silence (or relative quiet), where I can do whatever I want, even if it means just being in my own head.

I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember. I love lounging around with a few friends at home, but I’m never the one who wants to go to (or throw, god-forbid) a party.

This is something about myself that I haven’t made my peace with, not just yet. I’m trying to find the right line, the right balance, between stretching myself and letting myself be exactly who I am. (Another wise friend told me, Everyone gets to be exactly who they are.)

I have a lot more to say on this topic because I spend way way way too much time thinking on it. It’s at the core of my sense of self. I have enough that this might just grow itself into a real essay someday. But let me just leave you with this teaser question, something I’ve been wondering lately. When I push myself a bit, when I go to a work event and force myself to work the room (*heave*), I give myself a pat on the back. I say to myself, Good job, Lisa, on not being so introverted. And here’s my question: do extroverts do the same thing? Do they wallflower their way through a party, then pat themselves on the back and say, Good job standing back quietly and just listening to everyone else?

I live with a lot of guilt over my introverted ways, and I wonder what's real and what's socially constructed and I wonder how to forge my path midst all that.

p.s. Two posts in one day? HECK YES I WILL. I’m working towards an invisible (to you) goal, and I’ll be sure to let you know when I hit it.