The Cure for Anything

I think I  need another weekend to recuperate from my weekend.  I was a volunteer at the 10th annual Broad Ripple Historic Home Tour.  I enjoy the sense of community and history that area of town has, and my company was a co-sponsor of the home (which happens to belong to a co-worker and friend of mine).

Friday night was a kickoff party, and somehow I got roped into working the wine-selling booth.  It was fun, but I was on my feet for about 6 hours.  I am getting too old for that kind of stuff.

Saturday was the actual home tour, and it was decided that I should be the front door greeter and ticket taker because I’m so good at talking to people.  Ironic, because I am an introvert at heart.  Not shy, not by a long shot, but definitely an introvert.  I figured that if I had the last shift of the day, it wouldn’t be as busy.  Wrong!  In the four hours that I was the greeter, nearly 350 people came through the house.  That is a lot of talking on my part.  The funny thing was that many, many people thought that I was the homeowner.  There was a photo of my friend and her husband hanging up on the wall behind me, and at least 75 people asked me questions like, “how long have you two been married,” or “is that a picture of your wedding?”.  At first I explained that I’m not the homeowner, etc.  Honestly, my friend and I don’t look very much alike, except the blonde hair.  All blondes look alike, right?  😉  Eventually, I figured out that people don’t want to hear the truth, the want to hear what they want to hear.  I let my friends in on what was going on, and we decided to go with it.  I kept saying to her husband, “oh, honey, can you be a sweet husband and get me another drink?”  He’s even more mischievous than I am, so he really took it and ran with it, coming up to me and giving me a big kiss.  Overall, it was a really fun day, but I spent another 6 hours on my feet.  And that much small talk with 350 strangers is almost enough to kill an introvert.  My “batteries” were depleted.

Today I slept in, cancelled all my plans, turned off my phone and didn’t leave the house, outside from walking to get some frozen yogurt with my son.  I very much needed to spend some alone time recharging.  I love these lines from the article 11 Things Introverts Want You to Know:

I need quiet, alone time.

Take no offense when I run off to the bat cave (garage) or tend to yard work to have some alone time. Or ignore your phone call because you tend to talk for far too long about so many things. I used to really beat myself up about this one. I like to be alone more than most people. I like to sit out on the deck and just stare off into space. I like to lie in bed at night and just lie there in the dark. It’s quiet. Serene. I’m either up in my head or meditating. You know. Keeping the thought life managed. I can’t help it. It’s how I’m wired.

There is always chit chat going on in my mind.

As my girlfriend comes into the room 10 minutes after her show has started and asks, “What did I miss?” Um. I have no idea. I was simply staring at the screen while listening to the chit chat going on in my head. I was pondering the deep things in life. Reminiscing. Creating. Dreaming. As an introvert, there is always a monologue going on in my brain, except for the time I take to meditate. In fact, meditation is a welcomed goddess-send that I practice daily.

There are just a few people in this world that I want to be around when I’m recharging my batteries.  Those people don’t drain my energy and allow me to be me.  My son is one of those people.  He came over to do his laundry and we ended up talking for hours about everything from Socialism, the stories we heard on NPR this week, renewable energy, and The Manifest Destiny.  He’s a good kid, er, man, if I do say so myself.

I work with some pretty funny people, as shown by this text between me and my co-worker.  Our Home Tour shirts arrived on Friday and she sent me a photo so I could see what they looked like.  As we spend more time at work than at home, we have decided that it may as well be as fun as it can be.  Oh, the stories I could tell!