Stolen Blog Line

"Introverts with imaginations: we throw parties in our minds!  Sorry, you’re not invited. Oh, you didn’t want to attend?  Is it because you think I’m crazy?" Comment if you can relate.

I was just reading a blog that I follow (yes, on a Saturday night. I know, you wish you were cool like me.) and she closed her post with the line I stole above and I thought it was great. It also made me want to write something about it. So what follows will be some kind of unedited, jumble of a response. Sort of a freewrite-journal hybrid, I guess.

I've always been an introvert. Case in point: I've spent nearly all of MEA alone. All by myself. Okay, I was grading like a fiend for nearly all of that time, but in between mountains of student work, I'd pour myself a cup of tea and just enjoy the silence. And then my cat would get all up in my face and need something or pretend-need something and I would be annoyed. Or I would open the window because it was a beautiful day and then some neighbor kid would run by or throw something or swear really loudly and I would peer out the window at him in disgust. I'm that neighbor, I guess.

Introversion always has a sort of shadowy figure hanging over it and I, for one, don't think that's fair. Don't get me wrong, being so trapped in your own mind that you can't interact with others isn't the pinnacle of mental health, but introverts are typically creative types and so, are always accompanied by their many vivid thoughts and memories. It's not so much that we enjoy being alone it's that we enjoy, perhaps, the absence of others insomuch as their absence allows us to focus our attention inward. How's that for selfish? We scoff at the bubbly, life-of-the-party extroverts for being attention hogs and me-me-me types, when we're really the selfish ones.