I'm apparently convincing more and more people, by no intention, that I'm an introvert... I've tried to stop being indignant when I hear someone matter-of-factly refer to me as such. I'm not anti-introvert, some of my favorite people are introverted, but it's more that it's not totally true of me.
Something I've learned is that I need to think things through and make sense out of them for myself. Some things take more of this processing than others, and then some may require no thought at all -- if I say "I've never thought about it," I'm likely just being honest. I process a lot, not just often but on repeat. Yes, sometimes it's overthought, but mostly it's just processing. The chaos, busyness, and noise of life can become overwhelming, and are at times cause for great adventure, others cause for retreat. Whether experiences, plans, goals, or tasks, I need to settle into what I think or feel about things, to be comfortable and confident in navigating life. That may be a very internal thing, but I have never fully lived in my inner world.
In the last year I've gone on an arduous journey; falling in love, fighting for it, then being separated from whom I shared that love with. Which, all in a year, I can hardly believe!
Love grew quickly, which I think we couldn't help. It was natural and we were easy companions. My family wasn't really in favor - well they were, then they weren't...some maybe were again, I don't know. See they had a lot of thoughts and assumptions - many of which they didn't share with me (which of course still got back to me anyway, as news travels in large families). Then there was the distance which prevented my friends from really getting to know him, or his getting to know me. They knew only of the plights of the relationship, shared to solicit their insights. No one could know how we felt about each other, how easy it was to trust one another with our stories, how close we felt.
Through this I began to find that the safest, most familiar place in my outer world was him. He was the person who noticed if he didn't hear from me for a few hours. He was the person interested in my every stupid thought, or passing whim. He was the person who called because I sounded sad over text. He was the person that put up with all my quirks and frustrating habits, rather patiently. He was the person who never grew tired of me.
The older we get, the harder it is to have deep friendships. I began to notice this a while ago, but managed to be okay with my extroverted world full of a-little-more-than surface level friends. I know plenty of people who have a feel for me, yet know so little about the depths and lengths of who I am. Then we happened. I had a best friend that was as into the friendship as I was, a love, the only discord being our distance-separated worlds. My world became phone calls and texts, time between weekend visits, and thinking about how to defend my most important relationship to all the other important relationships. I often thought about how it was like being forced into a corner where I was virtually alone.
Fast forward to this relationship ending, against my hopes and heart. Now, my world is vastly different than it was little over a year ago when this all started, my outlook is different. There are a lot of relationships I haven't invested in in a while - a lot that haven't invested in me in a while. Most of all, with hands full of heart pieces, I don't feel like letting just anyone in to my world right now.
Society is full of people with quick tongues - heck, I'm sometimes guilty of that! (But I'm learning.) Right now, I often live in my inner world, and have been for a while, as I've trekked this path. Many people who've been unfortunate as to only really get to know "me" on this leg of the path have seen me in atypical form. I may very well appear to be an introvert, when it's actually that I've found a lot of pain which has sent me inward. And I ran out of grace for people taking the opportunity to express opinions such as I was settling anyway, or good for me, or there's someone else "better". So not only did I lose my best friend, but a lot of trust elsewhere was damaged. I had been very vulnerable, and so became very hurt, but only because I loved very deeply. For all that pain, I still hold that that was a worthwhile journey, to love and be loved deeply...so when I'm told some sort of 'attaboy' or 'good riddance', it only hurts and causes me to linger in my world.
After so many times hearing it said with the same sureness one would use in naming the color of the sky, I'd begun to wondering if I was now an introvert. But that's something I've learned this year, when there is no safe place to process verbally, I retreat inward. With that and the slow rebuilding from my brokenness, I have certainly been more in my inner world this year than any other time in my life.
I could understand how in a dust storm so many would think the sky is a muddied gray, but in fact when the dust settles they will find that it is a rich, bright and deep blue.
