Balance

Yeah, yeah, I cut the top of my head off. YOU try and take a picture of yourself standing on one foot. (Please ignore the empty wine bottle and the garbage that needs to go out... I'll be dealing with those later! And yes, my shirt *does* say "does not play well with others." I think that forewarned is forarmed!)

Anyhoo. This is actually not the kind of balance I'm talking about. I just thought it'd be cute. I'm talking about the kind of balance where your life doesn't consist of going to school, cleaning your apartment, watching TV, and reading books. *coughcoughthelifeIlivedayearorsoagocoughcough*. I was running through the river valley on Friday morning when I suddenly realized how much happier I am now than I've ever been before. (This seems to be a theme for this year. It's a good theme. It could stick around for as long as it wanted, and I'd be pleased. Thematically pleasing, that's my life.) And I think a lot of it is just that I'm so much more balanced than I've ever been before.

At heart, I'm an introvert. Being with people uses up my energy; being alone replenishes it. Lovely. Fine. Not a big deal. But I used to spend absolutely obscene amounts of time alone. Sitting next to someone for 50 minutes in a 300 person psych class really doesn't count as time with others. ;) The weirdest part is that, in many ways, I was convinced that I liked spending so much time with me, myself, and I. I have very 'happy' memories of puttering around the apartment for a whole weekend, never really seeing anyone else, except my roommate.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?? I would go INSANE if I spent that much time doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING now. When I think of all the time I wasted in front of the TV... yuck! And I was lonely all the time, because I never spent any time with any people! (Was that sentence good English? I think not. But you get the idea.)

Anyhoo. I was running in the river valley, and I realized that now, even when I'm by myself, I'm a lot happier than I used to be. Now, when I'm alone, I'm usually doing something productive, like running, or reading, or cooking, instead of sitting on the couch, letting my brain cells ooze out my ears. (I also sleep. Sleep is good.) And I value that alone time so much more because I spend a lot of time with great, great people. Megs and I are together a lot, I'm going for dinner with Chris tonight, Katie and I will be attached at the hip this summer... and yes, I'm still dating like a 'floozy' (as Adrian so nicely put it! *grin*)

So I'm taking care of myself socially, spiritually, physically (I love riding my bike. My brother tells me that I'm the kind of girl who takes something totally geeky, and rocks it. Hence my Cool Cat sunglasses, and my sexy bike. That's its name, by the way. One of my classmates christened it!), and intellectually. It's such a great feeling!

Also a great feeling: I'm officially able to make conversation with a rock now. I know, I know - you're all thinking "E., you never STOP talking. Why is this exciting??" The truth of the matter is that, yes, I can talk the hind leg off a rhino... provided that I already know the rhino, and am comfortable with him. But I really, really stink at making small talk with people that I don't know that well. This was probably my biggest weakness as an ESL teacher - I found it really difficult to stimulate natural conversation in the classroom without using some sort of paper prompt (a game, a story, etc.). I was a bit worried about this being a problem in my clinical life, as well. Then, well...

Then I started dating a lot more than usual. And seriously - one or two dates where no one says anything, because neither of you can think of anything to say? HIGHLY MOTIVATING. My use of open-ended questions, and "tell me more" has increased exponentially. ;) I feel a lot more comfortable in odd little situations, like talking to people at church whom I don't know well, chatting with the staff at school that I don't interact with very often, etc..., and I'm really hoping that it carries over into clinic. We'll see!

Well, this is a long and introspective post. (AKA - really boring for anyone that isn't me.)

Cheers!
me