Thoughts from a Bus Ride—the second half of the bus ride when I was no longer sitting by an annoying drunk guy

OK so these thoughts started before the bus ride, but on the bus I decided that I would write them on this blog even though they are not the kind of thoughts I usually write about…With that said…

The evening before my trip back to the beautiful land of South Sudan, I read one of those articles that people post on their Facebook pages that is in list form and has Harry Potter moving-picture things (I think that truly-informed nerds would call them GIFs?) with funny captions. It was one of those “30 Signs You are a ________”. Sometimes I find these entertaining and educational—like when I watched the “Remember the 70’s/80’s/90’s” TV shows that used to come on VH-1 when I was in college. They really helped me catch up with the pop culture that was never a part of my life in Indonesia.  Now I look to “30 Signs You’re Almost 30” to see where I should be in my personal development, “25 Ways You Know You’re a TCK” to make myself feel better for having had to watch dumb TV shows to understand pop-culture, and so on. You may be wondering how I have so much time to read random things posted on my friends’ Facebook pages when I don’t have consistent internet access. The answer is three-fold:

1.     I can sometimes read them from my phone.

2.     I get bored writing emails, so I open one of these articles, wait for it to load and then go back to writing my emails.

3.     Then when I get to another boring part of an email, I go back and see if that article has loaded.

So the point of this is that my rambling thoughts started to be about the list that a friend of mine posted, “27 Frustrating Things about Being an Extrovert.” If you have read this blog, met me, and/or you are my mom, you know that I am an introvert. And if you are on Facebook then you know that every few days one of your introvert friends posts one of those lists-- “28 Ways the Introverts are Always Suffering,” “22 Things that Make Introverts Better than Everyone Else,” “50 Common Misconceptions about Introverts,” etc., etc. I usually feel compelled to read these “articles”, although I’ve started to feel that it must be an introvert trait to post articles about being misunderstood by the rest of the world. While I understand fully and very personally that introverts often express themselves better through the written word and, while taking pride in our individualism often need reassurance that we aren’t isolated freaks of nature, I feel like posting lists of our common traits/skills/sufferings seems to take away some of our mysteriousness. I mean, I didn’t really think that it needed to become common knowledge that I sometimes hide in the bathroom during loud parties—NOW where am I supposed to go to escape loud noises and competing conversations? So maybe it is comforting to know that I’m not the only one who does this (unless I’m at a party and the bathroom is already occupied by someone planning to stay there longer than a minute—that would not be comforting), but I don’t always take pride in my misanthropic tendencies. So I was refreshed to see an Extroverted list (since I always thought Extroverts were supposed to be the ones who could go on and on about themselves though it is the Introverts who seem to be very adept at making lists), and I clicked on the link and waited a day for it to load.

Opening Christmas presents with Emily

Naturally, I identified with almost nothing on that list, but I was interested to see several comments that showed that Extroverts who made the list had been reading those Introverted lists too and may be feeling the need to defend themselves for being shallow, needy, non-stop talkers. In fact, reading their list made me feel a bit bad for some of the things we Introverts said about them. Our lists almost always include a point about how misunderstood we are, but I think we often misunderstand the other side as well and do it with a bit of arrogance to boot.  I thought I’d take this time to appreciate the wonderful extroverted friends I have who DO understand me. Yes, we are different, but that is why I enjoy their company. They pull me out of my inner-world and dare me to do crazy things (I will almost always take a dare).

Swimming over an old Roman road in the Med with Scott

Right now I’m thinking about Emily Seymour who helped start this blog by being very supportive and demanding and, as someone who loves the Myers-Briggs personality test, actually made me think more about I’s and E’s and all the other personality traits. We are almost complete opposites (or maybe complete opposites?), but this lady loved me in spite of initially thinking I was a snob who hated her (actually many of my good friends had to overcome this initial opinion of me—I’m sorry for my snobby exterior. It’s not intentional.). She went out of her way to make me be her friend—actually that’s a good game plan if you want to have a relationship with me at all—don’t give me a choice. She opened her home and dragged me into it many times, but she always understood when I put my introvert foot down, and after we were friends, I don’t think she thought I hated her when I insisted on a quiet night alone.  I’ll throw husband Scott an extrovert shout-out too, though I think he has a few introverted tendencies, and I just love this couple and their two kids that I don’t really know outside of stalking all their photos on Facebook. I’m so thankful that they were able to overlook our differences and love me in spite of myself. Also, for all the mean things I subconsciously or consciously did to try to convince them and other extroverted people that they didn’t really want to be my friends, I am sorry—I did want to be your friend, it just took me a while for you to convince me.  And while I do wear the badge of Introvert with pride, I hope that I can learn to be as wonderfully hospitable and unselfish with my time and my home and my life as these Extroverts. I won’t stop enjoying my alone time or trying to find excuses for not going to parties. I will probably continue to hide in the bathroom at overcrowded events. I will always hate going to restaurants with large groups of people who have to move tables together and can’t have one communal conversation. But there are a few Extroverted traits I hope to cultivate, `a la the Seymours and some other lovely Extroverted friends of mine who deserve to be mentioned here, but I’m done rambling now, so maybe next time. I will say that I hope that I meet many more Extroverts in my life, and without them the world would be way too full of angst and remote cabins in the woods.

And Emily: Monita said that my greatest power is my Sensitivity. And we laughed about that because clearly she didn’t know me at all. But she would have been better advised to give you that super-power--the Extrovert who understands Introverts and knows how to make them feel loved and welcomed and comfortable enough to wear a Moroccan cape and loudly sing annoying 80’s songs while her husband films the whole thing. You lost that video, right?

After we had a fight about Christmas lights

We lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world

Trying on stylish clothes

Trying to recover from our Halloween Party--something I would never EVER have done on my own, but it was fun!