Introversion

Picture_3, originally uploaded by camille94019.

I am having "introvert envy." I love the way introverts can lock themselves in their rooms and not answer the door. How they can go on long walks and come home late at night, and we don't wonder where they have gone (maybe we do, but we keep our curiousity to ourselves). How they maintain a private piece of spiritual turf that is theirs alone.

I have spent most of my life living with introverts (my family and more than half of my housemates) and I am somewhat familiar with the MO. I only need a little reminder that they need to be alone, or that now is not a good time to talk. I can read the language of a shut door and not get my feelings hurt. I am so well trained I rarely ask twice if someone says no to a proposed trip downtown (okay, oxy, maybe I think you need a little cajoling, but its for your own good). I try at least.

Recently, I have discovered the pleasures of a solitary ocean swim. Of eating my breakfast outside in the newly cleaned backyard. Of jogging alone. Of curling up with a book in the hammock. Summer seems like a perfect time to get to know myself a little better. To spend extra time in the shower, to get to know my down comforter a little more deeply. I don't have any where to rush off to. No looming schedules eating up my entire day. Its nice. Its vacation. I am enjoying my company. I have relished the time I can spend working on the next Submarine (hours and hours this weekend).

Unfortunately, its not as peachy as I anticipated. Yesterday I was accused of being "irritated." I was told that I had been "isolating" myself in my room. My friend was "concerned" about me. I was told that I was causing the "tension" to rise. I tried to explain that I was working on art (in an artist's house, I would have imagined that this would have been as sacred as sleep or going to the bathroom). The reply was that I was being "passive aggressive." I was absolutely furious. Did I not have a right to sit at my own drafting table and draw quietly? I am realizing the cost of setting up boundaries, of cultivating a private space. I have never had to do this before. Now it is all the more precious.

I am going to go draw.