Selective Peopling...It's Not Them, It's Me

The older I get, the more I accept my introverted extroverted status in life. Look, I share an office with 2 to 5 people depending on the goings on. I'm a mother to a child that never stops talking unless she's asleep. My husband thrives with noise so there will be the bedroom TV on while he folds laundry in between cooking where the tablet is on with a cooking show some nights and then the kid watching whatever she's into for her down time in the evening, all at once. I LOVE MY QUIET.

My office always has some noise, I work in proximity to the TV/Radio studio for my company so there is white noise if you will, I like MY QUIET, which is music or a podcast I wanna watch with no one else in my ear. I have to be nice to the less than fantastic personalities I share said space with. I love my two bosses because they are busy and keep to themselves, my other co-workers, well one likes to talk too much about her cats, her bible study and her weird views on life and money, and the other one says the same cliche things to me and condescendingly calls me "Dear" to the point where I want to scream. I like quiet.

I do work with customers so I have to use all my kindness and patience with them and also with my child, sometimes with my husband. One thing I have learned: I can handle certain people, in certain circumstances, and most often mentally prep to do so, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

In wonderful text exchanges this week I realized that we all do this, purposefully or not, I'm just done pretending I don't. We have a birthday party to attend this weekend and the hosts are one of my all time favorite families ever. There will be mostly people I don't know. I can mingle and talk with everyone but by dinner, I'm going to need to hide in front of Netflix and snuggle my kid after all the peopling. 

And this is my Sunday struggle. See, church is supposed to be this peaceful place, but then I go and sometimes I only wanna engage with the people that know where I'm growing, yes growing. Sometimes I can get up the energy to just people in general, but it feels exhausting to do the "How do you do and shake hands," and put on the game face, more often than not. Sometimes I just wanna "be" and when I get the sense that the "be-ing" is going to be a task, I recoil and retreat.

I always remind people, "Keep inviting me to do stuff." It's not that I refuse to people and have fun. It's more, sometimes I'm mentally exhausted and need to do nothing. Sometimes we already have plans. Sometimes we don't have the gas money or extra money to attend things. Sometimes you're going to a restaurant I hate and don't want to have a stressful dining experience. And sometimes I just can't people that day. 

I like a lot of people in general. I can do really well in social situations, when I prep myself, but I also do well one on one. For every social exertion, in turn I need some reboot. For me, its the same as working out; everyone needs a rest day from time to time. My thing is, I'm really tired of feeling like I have to explain myself. I usually just resign to claiming, "Sorry I suck at planning right now," "Sorry I suck at this, that, xyz, right now."

I might be in a completely renewed, and healing place right now, a positive, happy place even, but that's just as delicate as when I'm navigating darkness and everyone handles their personal stuff differently. For so many close to me, I know church is their haven and safe place, but for me it is not. Growing up with a Presbyterian Pastor father but attending Catholic school can really mess up your religious views. For me, it has made me smart and cynical but also very sensitive to what church should be about.

When it comes to being around addiction, recovery, alcoholism and such, church can get very oppressive for me. In Catholic school you're sent to pray as punishment, but you're also supposed to pray that people just get "better" and "get right." There is no help when things don't work out that way, or so in my personal experience. At my dad's church you were meant to find your "Framily" you know the friends who are family thing, and take the message from the sermon, and get what you can from it for your current circumstances and learn. 

When my family was struggling most, my dad stopped "making me" go to church and let me have time to heal and grow until I was ready to come back. This is now my default when I struggle. Even in happy times, if I'm struggling to adapt and keep on growing, I need my time to heal and grow without feeling the pull towards what I'm "supposed" to do with myself. And when I go and people, and put myself out there it's a delicate thing. I have to people quite carefully. I recently let my husband in on this a little more but it's really hard to explain to people, and really exhausting to have to, so again I keep distance when needed. 

I think life is hard enough. It is exhausting with long days and shorter and shorter years I feel, and peopling is rough for those of us with anxiety and all the other things happening, in my humble opinion. I try to consider this when I interact with others, just how difficult it can all be and that other people might share this point of view with me even if they don't say it out loud. Consideration is huge and it seems to be lacking in it's consistency in this world. For those people who "get me," none of the above is a surprise and for those who don't, you may never get me and I'm super done pretending I even want to be "gotten." 

The point of all of this is that, peopling can be just as taxing as a heavy workout, just mentally so. And with mental health being merged into real discussions now, just take a moment and be kind to everyone because you never know how much peopling they can do, and what inner battles they face. Stay calm, stay patient and stay kind and remember it's most likely not a personal thing, but a peopling thing.