I crave creative company, gobble it up when I find it, talk too much, laugh too loudly – but I have stopped caring about the “too” for now. I am restless, waiting to see what will happen next, unwilling – or too tired – to shape my own destiny just now. So life is happening around me. People laugh, they say words I know I should know and understand, but the only way for me to hear is not to see, so I stop looking and forget myself as I listen. I think maybe they think I’m hiding, but I’m not. I don’t process information through eye contact and acknowledgement. I absorb it. It becomes part of me, and I have to live it, even though I doubt I could ever regurgitate it or teach it to anyone. I would send others to them to learn it, rather than teach it myself.
I finished my new website. It is a place to start. I am in a new place, a new favorite place, waiting, listening. I didn’t bring my camera, but I see the wind, hear the water. I watched the gray fly away into blue this morning and thought as I walked with friends how it is strange and easy to be quiet in this place, strange because it is never easy for me to be quiet. I feel happy, but I am not sure how to say it, so when people ask me how I’m doing, I try to pick an answer. I haven’t succeeded with a good one yet today.
As I was working on my website, I decided that I would do something I haven’t tried before, that I would own my introversion. I’m not sure what that looks like. I’m the responsible one, the one who made up her mind to greet people and not be shy in church, the one who has to pull other people out and get them to be real instead of making them nervous. But I’m wondering if speaking softly would serve me better, if treasuring people would make me happier than worrying about fitting in or having the right thing to say.
I didn’t know a person could cry in their sleep. I don’t know why I did.