I is for Introvert

The Myers-Briggs personality test and I have always hated each other. Why? It has always told me that I am directly in between being an introvert and an extrovert. One year, I got an 11E, 10I and the next, 11I and 10E. My college would put us together with other people with our same "personality" type. I was able to spent one year with Extroverts, and one year with Introverts.  While the Extroverts were more fun and loud (and I laughed a lot), I felt like the Introverts were easier for me to communicate with on a genuine level.

I used to date Extroverted guys. I found myself extremely drawn to people that were the center of attention. I wanted to be right there with them, in the middle of the action. But the relationships never lasted long. While being with an Extrovert is a fun "treat" for me, it's kind of like eating Girl Scout cookies. The pleasure only lasts halfway through the box, and then you started to get sick because you've over-indulged in the experience.

When my husband and I started dating, there was something immediately different with the relationship. There was mutual respect for space, mutual dependency and desire to spend one on one time with each other, and an immediate, incredible attraction that never faltered. And virtually no jealousy on my end - which is saying a lot because I used to be a highly jealous person.

That's when I realized that I actually am an introvert. While I love people and being in groups, while I love concerts and crowds and the energy that emanates from the throng of people, I still need time by myself. I need one on one time with my significant other, and I crave nights at home on the couch - alone.

The best thing I could have ever done for myself was to partner with an introvert. Extroverts are shiny, deadly boxes of cookies - the girl scout kind where you can never stop eating until you realize you are sick to your stomach on deadly sweetness.

But introverts? Mine has become a life partner who gives me one or two cookies a day and never lets me overeat and tells me how wonderful I am without spoiling my appetite with sweetness.

But that's me... and I really like cookies.

Tomorrow I will be posting another excerpt from The Unanswerable.

Shifting Sands

Melting into swirls

The hot sun pressed us

Into the sand, drifting,

Nothing ever shifts

More than the footprints

Buried, neck deep

Swallowing salty air

Lungs dried and settled

Rusty, lengthy gasps

Ruined memories of dust

Nothing ever shifts

More than the light

Day to night, we end

Fighting to pretend

That footprints never change

Turn away and walk

Down the alleys of dark

Hide in the shadows

Drown on the sorrows

Kneel before what used to be

Ruined memories of dust

Nothing ever shifts

More than the footprints

Left in the old sand

That no longer reaches my heart 

-------

There was once a time in my life where I would do anything for anyone.  I would stand up and fight for them even if they stabbed me in the back.  For me, it usually takes three backstabs and then I drop you (unless, of course, we are playing TF2, in which case, if you backstab me, I will hunt you down and kill you just the same - but that's a video game, not real life).

My friendship is like some horrible baseball game.  Strike one, okay, forgiven, just get it right the next time.  Strike two, okay - maybe I shouldn't have taken you back so easily, maybe I should have given us more time to reflect, but I still love you just the same.  Strike three - out.  Out of my life, out of my heart, forever.  I'll take the memories and crumple them up and burn them in the next bonfire I attend.  Little pieces of paper that hold all the thoughts of you and me together tossed away in an instant. 

Recently, I felt something shift in me.  It's no longer three strikes.  It's not even two.  It's one.

I'm still processing how I feel about this shift.  Maybe someday I can talk about the situation more candidly.  While I have been "mourning" what used to be and how that will never be the same again, a part of me feels free somehow.  My whole life, I allowed people to stab me three times before showing them the door.  And now, I have the strength, the disconnect, whatever you want to call it, to let go. 

People change.  The way you feel about them changes too.  And sometimes I hate it, that the impressions someone makes on your heart can never be the same again.  Someone once said to me, "You can never go back."  Tears threatened my eyes and I refused to believe it was true.  No, I told myself, my friends that I had just left behind in Boston would never change.  We would always be friends.

This is the first instance where I realized how true that statement is.  While I still have good memories, I can never live in those memories again.  I cannot curl up in the comfort of a sing-a-long by the bonfire because those memories are false.  They are real, as real as ever, but they will never happen again.  You can never go back, but that's why here and now is so important.  You need to continue forward, head up high, knowing that people changed you and that you changed them.  Maybe you can never go back to the night that you spent staring at the stars, but you can get the stars today.  You know you were happy then, and you know you are happy now, and you can wish them the same.

But you can never go back.  And now that I think about it - I've changed too much to want to go back.

I still love my memories.  I still love the people in them.  But that's all they are - precious memories.