wine, and erin

Last week, I finally went to the Thursday night wine and horseback riding lesson.  There were five riders, including me.  I was, by far, the worst one.  This is not a position I like to find myself in when I am doing something in a group, but it's something that I think is good for me.  When you're a perfectionist, nothing is better for you than sucking at something.  Also, just about nothing is harder.  Except for maybe sucking at something in front of a bunch of strangers that you want to like you. 

And of course, nothing bad happened.  It was actually fun to be riding in a group setting.  It was fine being the worst one.  At some point, you're SO FAR behind the other people that it's not even embarrassing -- you're just a beginner, and they're experienced.  I did not fall off, I did not go bolting across the ring out of control.  There was one point where I couldn't get my horse to stop, but even that wasn't too bad.  Then, after the lesson, we had wine and chatted.  Another person in my lesson was surprised to learn that horseback riding was a new hobby for me, which flattered me.  Everyone swapped stories about falling off, and my old teacher told a story about a student that she was convinced was trying to murder her (by poisoning).  I did not say much, but it was okay.  I did not drink excessive amounts of wine, which I felt was crucial considering that one e-mail exchange.  After an hour, we all went home.  All-in-all, it was fun, and nothing terrible happened. 

(I do not ride like this.  Not even close.)

lion taming

In the battle of man vs. nature, it's commonly understood that nature is going to win.  It's like this in every book where man (and I do mean MAN, usually) goes up against nature and tries to survive/tame/whatever - nature always comes out on top. 

For this reason, I don't know why I bother with things like dandelions.  They seem to crop up everywhere, and the latest place is each and every crack of our back patio.  They're heaving the paver bricks up and out, and trying to pull the beasts merely results in a handful of leaves, with the stubborn taproot still firmly in place, under the patio.

Since today seems like it will be the last of our unseasonably warm days, I've relocated myself out onto the patio, which is what makes me think of it.  Posting a picture feels like one of those ads for Fosters beer.

(Australian for Home Office)

on solitude

It turns out, I suppose, that I have been worried about the wrong things.  Before I quit my job, I spent long hours talking to Kathy, to my therapist, to anyone who would listen, about how, even when I quit, I would still have a schedule, I would still have things to do, don't worry, I won't come unmoored.

(Photo Credit)

As it turns out, having this schedule, all these things to do, was the problem all along.  I've cleaned my closet, I've cleared out and bleached the fridge.  I've spread mulch and watched tulips push their way out of the soil in the garden.  I've kept my appointments and made lunch plans.  I've stepped up when the nanny was ill and attended school events (including one for a neighbor kid when both his parents were working).  I've called my parents, I've spent the day in Brooklyn with long-neglected friends.  I've kept busy.

And I feel a panic similar to the panic I felt while working, that there aren't enough hours in the day for all of these obligations.  That if I don't get up now, I will waste the best part of the day, where there is a moment of silence, and the obligations will come crashing in.  In my obsession with keeping myself busy to fend off the depression everyone promised (myself included!) would follow quitting a job which consumed the vast majority of my life energy for the three years I worked at it -- as well as the three years I trained for it -- I neglected what my soul was telling me as it ached to just quit in the first place. 

old soul

(A Young Girl Reading, by Jean Honore Fragonard)

Kathy, who is a bit older than me, always teases me that actually, she's younger.  She loves going out, going to parties, and having people over.  She likes staying up late.  I, on the other hand, like to go to bed so that I'm not tired the next day.  I like to stay in, maybe have a few friends over.  Really, of course, what we're talking about is the introversion/extroversion binary -- which we happen to be toward opposite ends of.  And which we deal with, without much conflict.  But we do joke that I would not like "young Kathy," the party animal.

Today, Susan Cain over at Quiet posted this interesting piece about whether there is more to the age/introversion connection than just Kathy's teasing.  It got me thinking that maybe the reason that I'm viewed by others as old-fashioned, or just plain old for my age, is just because I'm more introverted than they are, and that we humans have a tendency toward introversion as we age. 

So, you know.  Food for thought, that's all.

anger

(Did you know that if you google image search "anger," you get 99% pictures of men? 

To a picture like the one above, you have to google "angry woman." 

Why do men seem to have a monopoly on anger? 

Why is their anger just anger, while ours is bitchy or whiny?)

Today, I was angry.  I was angry pretty much all day.  I was angry about some stuff going on in my personal life.  I was angry because I have been busier at work since I gave notice than I have been in months.  I was angry because I could not get the carpet people to commit to a time to come replace the soaking padding underneath our carpet in the basement where it flooded.  I was angry because the timing did not work out for me to go for a run in the middle of the day today.

I have a little bit of a temper.  Well, actually, I have a pretty vile temper, it just takes a bit to set it off.  But the past two days, I have been right on the edge of it, constantly.  That means I have to hold myself pretty tightly in check.  I have been trying to figure out why exactly, when I realized that this is always how I get when I don't have any time alone.  I get over-stimulated.  And then I am on the edge.

The problem is that it is not always feasible in my life to be able to retreat.  I live in a house with four other people.  I also have friends and other family.  And since giving notice at work, I have had a constant stream of visitors to my office.  I have had work commitments, coupled with some pretty intense family crises of late.  I don't know how to balance it all.  It is easy to say that I should "make time for myself" etc., etc.  But the demands of a family, a job, and a community of friends don't always make this possible.  So what is an introvert to do?

Today, my only solution was to go for a run.  With Kathy, who I have not seen alone in what feels like forever.  We talked about some of the things making me angry.  It didn't really help to make me any less angry.  Burning off the adrenaline that has been kicking in my veins all day was a nice feeling, but it doesn't feel like a long-term solution.  I know I need more time alone, stimulus free, than many other people.  This makes it extraordinarily challenging sometimes to communicate this need to the people who love me in a way that they can understand.  I don't have an answer to this dilemma.  But at least I was able to identify the problem.  Which is a beginning, I suppose.  But I'm still kind of pissed off.

hi, want to be friends?

(from this flikr photostream)

I have talked before about how important I think it is to have a regular date night to sustain a healthy relationship.  Time together alone is essential to work through your issues, talk about your problems, hopes, and dreams, and do other things that can be little awkward with other people around (if you know what I mean).  But there is something else that I think is essential to a relationship.  And that other essential thing is friendship.  With other people.  Not as a couple.

This one is much harder for me than staking out time alone with Kathy.  This week, while Kathy was in London, would have been a good time for seeing my friends.  Except that I had a stomach bug over the weekend that had not quite worked its way through my system, so I cancelled a cardio class I was supposed to go to with a friend from law school.  I had dinner with my sister on Tuesday night (yes, she counts as a friend in my book), but again cut it shorter than I would have liked because I kind of felt like crap.  Then, Wednesday rolled around.  It was supposed to be a rescheduled friend-date with the law school friend from Monday, but the weather hit and I was trapped in the house all day.  Blah.  A whole week of Kathylessness, and I only got to see one friend.

Making friends is not, and never has been, the easiest thing for me.  I can be outgoing, and I do talk kind of a lot.  But that doesn't mean that interactions with people I don't know well are easy for me (they're not) and, frankly, I am kind of picky about who I will create a friendship with.  I am one of those people who would rather have a few close friends than many not-so-close friends.  If you're only going to have a few friends, it makes sense that you would want them to be people you thoroughly enjoy, right?  Everyone has people in their life that they like "only in small doses."  To me, that kind of feels like a waste of time.  If I only like someone in small doses, I don't really like them that much, do I?  Why, then, would I waste my time creating a relationship with a person I don't like that much?  Perhaps that is a bit harsh, but it's really how I feel about it.  So, to all my friends out there reading this, Hi, I like you a lot.  :-)

square

(istockphoto)

I love living in our small town.  I think it's apparent to anyone who reads this blog that I do.  I also love having kids in my life (especially A, B, and C, Kathy's kids).  I love living with Kathy.  I love doing things around the house, I love cooking, I love books.  I do not love crowded bars, nightclubs, or general admission concerts.  I don't like the city, and I don't like hipsters (sorry, but I don't, being around them makes me all nervous and self-conscious.  It's why I won't go to Williamsburg).  I like turtlenecks.  I don't like loud music, other than in the car.  I know myself pretty well.  Why, then, do I have a hard time surrendering to who I really am? 

When I was younger, I used to chirp to my parents all the time about how I wanted to live in a city.  I said it so much that I started to believe it.  Specifically, I wanted to live in San Francisco.  My sister said the same thing (only failed to name her city.  Sister, you lose points for specificity).  I talked about how wasteful it was to commute by car, when mass transit would be available if only you lived in the city.  I talked about how selfish it was for people to want their own little plot of land (to do what in, I asked my parents).  I mean really, you can walk one block and throw the ball in the park, right?  And community gardens, people! 

I also used to say that it's really important to be single, so you can find yourself and really know yourself before committing to a long-term relationship.  I glorified the idea of single-dom.  All those friends I would have, all the late nights at bars talking about interesting things (and, no doubt, complaining about the losers in the dating world).  All the lovers, with no strings attached.  The freedom of it all. 

INFJ

A while ago, a work colleague of mine circulated the Jung/Briggs Myers personality test.  I am, according to this quiz, an INFJ.  In fact, before I wrote this post, I just took it again, and I'm still an INFJ.  As a general matter, I spend a lot of time thinking about myself.  Not in a self-absorbed way (I hope) but more that I like spending time trying to get to know myself.  Perhaps that is why I am inclined to take the same personality quiz twice, on different days, for accuracy.  And why it ended up the same each time.  So what, you ask, is an INFJ?

(via this blog, which I do not read, but was the only

 place I could find a cute cartoon about being an INFJ)