In the next week I’ll have a holiday party, three Christmases, grocery shopping, one floorset shift, and hopefully a haircut.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
And I can feel my anxiety rise every time I look at my calendar.
It’s not that I don’t want to do these things (okay, I’m not a big fan of grocery shopping), but it’s just a lot of me to do in a week. For once, this has nothing to do with my laziness.
I’m an introvert.
Someone explained it that when it comes to social interactions, extroverts take in the energy from being out and about while introverts expend it. As an introvert, this means I will be expending some level of energy for every activity I do the week in question. The routine stuff, like floorset and grocery shopping, doesn’t require as much energy as the holiday party and the Christmases will, but it will all cost me. I’m going to be more than wiped out by the time it’s all said and done.
As an introvert, I require a certain amount of preparation and recovery time from social interactions. Sometimes it’s not much. Sometimes it’s a lot.
This means I don’t go out as much as my friends. I’m not as socially active. I have one friend that I know might be home for dinner one or two nights a week, maybe. She’s always running. After work there are all sorts of activities that she or her husband or her kids are involved in. And that’s great! But I have no idea how she can manage it because for me, it would be so draining that I’d be dead within a week.
She is an extrovert. And I’m little jealous of that.
Being an introvert can be a bit tiring. I don’t go out as much with my friends as maybe I should or maybe I’d like to. There are times when my energy is riding high and I’m good to go. Lots of times, it takes all I can muster just to get through the regular social interaction of my day. As a result, people stop asking you to do things because they know the answer will “always” be no. It’s kind of a bummer.
I’m not trying to whine about it. I’m sure there are bummer aspects to being an extrovert, too. I’m just not sure what they are.
I’m too busy looking on in amazement at how people can be so socially active and not need a day or a weekend or a week (or month, or…) to recharge. To me, extroverts are like the Energizer Bunny, just going and going and going.
Meanwhile, as an introvert, I feel like a dying laptop battery that’s gotta be charged every couple of hours.
I wonder if I can get a replacement off of Amazon.
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