Solitude

One of my favorite nonprofits is the organization TED, based out of New York City. It's a nonprofit that believes in Ideas Worth Spreading. It brings together interesting people from fields as varied as particle physics to fashion to poets and has them give twenty minute talks on their big ideas. The talks are inspiring, hopeful, and some are profoundly moving. I have a list that I regularly recommend to my friends and acquaintances and it reflects my own passions. There are poets and philosophers of religion, physicists and architects. But my favorite talk, the talk that I regularly tune in when I'm feeling blue or exhausted is Susan Cain's talk on The Power of Introverts. It's a brilliant talk. I actually stole my idea of "writing dangerously" from what she says about learning to speak dangerously. It's a talk that literally had me standing still, frozen in the act of chopping a cucumber the first time I heard it. I was overwhelmed by simultaneous feelings of vindication and the sense of "Thank God! Someone finally gets it!"

Let me back up. I'm writing this blog post from an armchair in my parents' living room. My family has currently gathered for a post-wedding gift opening elsewhere. I'm in Wisconsin because my youngest cousin got married yesterday. I've successfully managed to beg off the third day in a row of  intense family time, claiming a headache and exhaustion. Both are true, but both have less to do with going out late last night or self-inflicted dehydration. The real reason I decided to skip the gift-opening today is a simple one that I've been unable to explain to my family for my entire life. I am the only introvert in a family of extroverts. 

Let me say that again. I am the only introvert in a family of extroverts. 

The issue of alone-vs.-together-time isn't a new one for me. As a child, I used to take books to family gatherings and my parents would light into me about how I needed to be a better mixer. I learned to adapt and fake extroversion. Or, at least, I stopped bringing books to gatherings. But I could never bring myself to participate in the rowdier discussions. I hate raised voices and the hours long bull-shitting situations in which my family engages. I love to tell stories and jokes and in the right company, manage to pull it off well. But when stimulation is non-stop for several days in a row, I struggle not to shut down completely. 

When I come back to Wisconsin, I have three and sometimes four or five days of time with not only my immediate family, but my extroverted extended family as well. On one level, I understand the necessity of it. I live hundreds of miles away and only see my family a few times a year. And it's fun and I love seeing everyone, but there's always a dog barking, people shouting, kids screaming, electronic toys going off. The television, regardless of the day or the occasion or the fact that no one is actually watching it, provides constant noise in the background. My family finds this time together stimulating, invigorating, or at least tolerable. I find it overwhelming. It's not that I dislike their company, I'd just prefer to see one or two of them at a time. In a quiet, television-less room. Where no one talk above a library whisper. Instead, I've spent many years faking extroversion. 

But fake extroversion for prolonged periods of time is exhausting. Over the years, I've stopped doing it. I'm not doing anyone any good by showing up to family gatherings cranky and exhausted. I've started trying to talk to everyone, but apart from the constant din. It's more enjoyable to catch one or two people outside for a smoke or while they're pushing their kids on the swings than it is to try to hear something in the immediate hullaballoo of holidays or celebrations. Last night, I spent a fair amount of time catching up with one of my favorite cousins. We talked about autism and working with children. It was an amazing, rewarding, wonderful conversation that we had outside of the hall where all the dancing and mingling was going on. 

It has taken me years to get to this place, to the place where it was ok to tell my folks I needed some alone time, to opt out of the large conversations. Years of unsolicited suggestions that I seek to overcome my introversion by therapy, by anti-depressants, by jumping into the deep end of the socializing pool. I had to endure constant questions about what happened to me in my formative years that made me so disinclined to spend time with other people. Imagine years of having your family--honestly trying to help--tell you that a major aspect of your personality is deeply flawed and needs fixing. That something about you isn't quite right. 

It's easy to be hard on them, mainly because I don't understand their frames of mind any more than than they understand mine. Why go out to a noisy, crowded bar when you could have friends over for dinner? Given the choice between a party and the option of curling up at home with a movie or a book, I'll almost always take the evening at home. It's a difficult conversation to have, especially after nearly twenty-eight years of trying to explain it, but I think I'm starting to make headway. I'm starting to convince them that, as Susan Cain says: 

Solitude matters. For some, it's even the air they breathe.

At least this afternoon, sitting the silence of an empty house, rejoicing in the two luxurious hours I have to read and write, I'm beginning to hope that's the case.