Team Introvert or Team Extrovert?

Can I play on both teams?

Today’s essay is one I wrote last June - in 2024. I plucked it out because I have been thinking a lot about my energy capacity as it relates to **this** (waving my arms around me) season my body is in. I am deep in perimenopause. My cycle shows up maybe every 65-70 days. I’ve gone as long as 95 days without it. I also have Hashimoto’s so that, I’m sure, contributes.

Sidenote - if you are a male reading this, stay. I think men need not walk away from conversations about women’s health because every man has a woman in their life they love, right? Whether a partner, mother, daughter, sister, friend. Just stay in these conversations because in so doing you can learn how to best support the women you love.

I was listening to this podcast yesterday with Kate Northrup and Dr. Mindy Pelz where they dove into how to do life as a woman around your hormones. It was a conversation I am so glad I listened to because I haven’t been listening to my hormones. I wish I had this information back when I was in my 20s and jumping into adulthood. Now I can empower my daughter as she stands on the threshold of menstruation. It’s coming and she knows it. And she has soooo many questions.

The biggest take away for me right now was hearing them describe estrogen as an extrovert. Hmmmmm. The older I get, the more introverted I get. I’ve always been an introvert who would slap on a mask pretending to be an extrovert. This knowledge feels important to me right now. Estrogen dips in perimenopause. Is this why I crave time by myself? Perhaps more than ever. Is this why my energy is sourced from my solitude?

I recently heard someone say (wish I could remember who/when but - perimenopause brain!):

“My partner has to compete with my solitude. I have fallen in love with my own company.”

It felt like a good week to (re)share the essay below¹. I hope you enjoy it. I’d love to hear what your relationship is to solitude.

I have been thinking a lot lately about energy and capacity and where I take myself to fuel up on both. I am a gal who is quite dependent on her two cups of coffee in the morning, but I also require time alone, outside. And when I say require, I mean I feel totally unmoored on days that I skip this time for me with me.

There was a stint of time when I was a runner. I called it my therapy. I would pound out my anxiety under my feet, thinking the pavement would absorb all the angst I needed to get out of my body. For a while it worked, until it didn’t. Until my body told me otherwise. With my knees screaming at me day after day, a voice spoke up inside me that said, stop keeping score this way. Stop trying to muscle a PR, rack up the mile counter, cross all the finish lines. Just slow the hell down.

So, I did. And I do. I still move my body every day. The pace is just a lot slower.

I bathe my mind in the forest each morning. I’m lucky to live in a town that has beautiful trails tangled in many directions.

Now, when I have my mornings to myself outside, I don’t have running playlists blasting in my ears. Instead, it’s birdsong. And in the midst of those tweets, I hear my own soft ideas of what I’d like to write about or talk about later with my kids or spouse. It’s a slow stepping into the day with zero regard for the distance I walked. I lift my face towards the sky to feel the sun or watch the clouds, and when I look down, my dog looks up and shows me what contentment looks like. The clickety-clack of her sweet paws against the road. The road that bends and winds with slivers of sunshine. This is how I fill my tank up.

These morning walks re-root me. Absorb me. Each step reminds me that shade is important- just as much as sun when you need internal growth. The canopy above my head reminds the mind inside me, the one that loves to loop and race, plan and predict, to drop it all on the ground, next to the pinecones. Step over the list of to-dos that litter my day and trust the open space. Amongst the trees I am reminded of a shared sky. Filtered sun and pokes of clouds ground my nervous energy. The hanging branches sweep away any anxiety that the coming day wants to dangle in front of me.

A bench along my usual route - a soft space to rest

In the shade I find space. It is how I hear the voice that is most true. The unfiltered one that bubbles up and strengthens my creativity. Encourages the words I write, on paper and in my heart. The sturdiness of tree trunks entice me to find my own footing. Stand tall in my convictions. Dig my roots in and spread my ideas.

I’ll spot a red tail hawk swoop down and park itself at the top of a pine. I stop. I look up. She looks down. A moment later she soars back into flight. I’m the only one here to see this. It feels like she did it just for me.

I must admit something though. Sometimes on those solo walks I wonder, am I casting too much of my own shade? Not letting others in. Declining social invitations too often and too quickly. I can easily retreat inward, harboring on isolation. I sometimes worry that I crave too much alone time.

Then, there are the moments I am reminded of the roots of friendship that go deep and forage connection.

A couple weeks ago, I met a friend for coffee. We were long overdue to get caught up. We laughed then cried then laughed then cried for two hours. It was the kind of connection that sears my heart with a knowing that I still need the warm company of a beating heart and human eyes. To witness my pain and my triumphs. And hold another’s.

There was something about this conversation that scratched an itch I didn’t know was there. A void I didn’t know needed to be filled. Together, we unraveled our hearts, lamenting over where we feel stuck and where we feel big energy. Volleying the ball back and forth. My turn then hers. Uninhibited we echoed to one another how raw we both felt about the future for our kids, our country, our bodies -what lights us up separate from all those things. It was the deep dive dialogue that I have been telling myself only people in recovery can really sink into. Sober people love getting deep - we get INTO the feelings. Yet, here was a friend, who saw me and knew me in my drinking days, who isn’t on the sobriety path and was willing and able to go there with me. The two hours in that coffee shop reminded me that I can expose my vulnerable self in many rooms. To anyone who makes me feel safe. It felt like I took down the yellow caution tape and handed a hard hat to an old friend. She tossed it to the ground and said, I don’t need that. I can handle all of this. She reminded me that I don’t have to hide or compartmentalize the tough stuff of recovery. She asked the questions I wish others would.

I write all this to say as much as I need that time tucked away by myself, meandering in the forest I also need these moments of laughing through tears in the coffee shop with the women that stitch me up. The midwives of my life, who know my past and can listen without judgement over things I regret, resent, and resist.

Sometimes I need to remind myself to step out of my own shadows, the ones I keep casting for protection, and expose myself to the light others are willing to share with me.

Photo by Jessica Sysengrath on Unsplash

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU:

~Do you tinker on self-isolation? What fills your energy cup - time alone or time with others?

~Are you team introvert or team extrovert? Or something in between?

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1. The original title of the essay was Am I a Lone Wolf? I think I like today’s title better because I am learning I can play on both teams, when I trust the players.