Do you ever look at your life and just think "so this is what this is."
I would fight bears for any of my friends, my family, my children, my marriage. But I wouldn't even fight butterflies for myself.
I find myself as a very anxiety ridden depressed human being with a beautiful mask of happiness thrust into a life of raising extroverted children. Have never been an extrovert I can do extroverted things on occasion but I am not an extrovert.
I remember so many times growing up my mom would tell me how easy something is "oh just go make a friend" or "just be happy" or "you can do anything because you're so smart." And I would inevitably yell back at her "mom I'm not you!"
I still wonder how she came by it so easily, and daily I miss getting to talk to someone who came by it so easily. We used to joke that my mom would only have to talk to you for less than 5 minutes and she would know your entire life story, almost. My dad and I chided her about gas station attendants and counter workers... how she knew their gross income how many kids their grandparents had and all of the names of their children's children. Because that's just how she was, she was a force of joy to everyone she bumped into. My mom was an extroverted extrovert. How she must have struggled raising me.
I wonder what she thought about her shy frightened daughter. I wonder these things because my children have never met a stranger. They have little to no fear of talking to someone and introducing themselves they're only 4 years old 2 years old and 9 months old. But if you say hi to my four-year-old she is very quick to say hi back and introduce herself and then introduce you to her sister and her brother with their names and their ages and tell you her favorite color and ask you yours. She'll gladly tell you how her father loves Boomer Sooner and her mother likes pistols firing but that's okay someone has to. She will talk to anyone in any situation, she wants to be friends. I love my children dearly but...they exhaust me.
I on the other hand, have gone to the same church for 11 years. And weekly someone will ask me my name and I will tell it to them and smile and they'll thank me for visiting.
I on the other hand only have a few friends...and mainly it's because they married my brother, or I married theirs.
So now at 40 with no mother to help me navigate raising babies I stand in the middle of a village with people circling me, but no one to ask for help. I'd be to worried of inconveniencing them.
An introvert stands in the middle of a village, but no one sees.
