psyching myself in

Last summer at a writers' conference I happened to meet two missionary kids, a brother and sister who grew up in Grenada.

M., the sister, and I have kept in touch and started a Meetup group for third culture kids in the area. We had our first meeting last Thursday and it wasn't super well-attended but we had one new person that none of us personally invited! I consider that a success.

I'm not usually the first person to show up anywhere, but that's one of the things I'm working on... Even if it means setting a start time half and hour beforehand and being 20 minutes late. (Which is what happened last Thursday.) All that to say, I found myself at the coffee shop alone when the only person I didn't know on the RSVP list showed up.

I used to feel like I was an extrovert; in college, I was engaging, and I could hold a conversation with anybody -- I could hold court. Since moving here and starting my job, I've felt a bit out of my depth. I'm the quiet one again, like I was in elementary school. And lately, I've been feeling pretty stressed out when there's pressure to start conversations with people I don't know very well, or at all.

But in this case, when the only person on the RSVP list I didn't know showed up, I started asking questions and getting to know him, and it was great. I felt, if not entirely comfortable, as though I had something to offer that was of value.

* * * * *
This brings me to a few points:

1. J is always telling me he doesn't get why I'm so self-conscious talking about my personal history and my travels -- 'where I'm from.' I just don't ever want to be that person who talks and talks and talks about all the cool places I've visited, all the while stomping down the people around me. But sometimes it turns into me devaluing my experiences and/or psyching myself out about having a conversation with anyone.
2. Psyching myself out is a very real stumbling block. Most of the time I don't even catch myself doing it, but one of my colleagues once said something about 'listening to the words as they're coming out of my mouth' and I realize I am guilty of doing that: worrying so much about my phrasings and nuances that I lose touch with the actual conversation I'm having and my core message.

Step one is always recognizing the problem. Once I realized I psyched myself out, I put a little bit of energy into psyching myself back in. Focus on listening to the other side of the conversation, not what's coming out of my mouth. Find a core commonality, even if it's something as simple as standing in the same square yard of space. In the case of the TCK group, it's the shared difficulty in answering the question, "Where are you from?"

It's not easy, but I'm learning to 'turn it on' when I need to be engaging, and to push my insecurities to the side. I might not say it right 100% of the time, but who does? We're all human -- and I'm beginning to realize that most people, no matter how old they are, or how apparently charismatic, have some insecurity about starting a conversation with an unknown person, or about holding court in a crowd. Our success at doing so has something to do with training, little to do with personality, but mostly to do with giving it a shot in the first place.

ridin' solo

Now, the state of crisis seems to be settling down.  (Knock on wood!)  I'm starting to feel more secure, or at least rooted, here.  My energy level is up, which means I'm getting a lot of good things done at work, and I'm usually in a pretty good mood.

But it also means I'm getting antsy.  Last year I started working out regularly, hoping it would help me focus on my work, and it did -- but then I just had so much energy I would stay at the gym for an hour... then an hour and a half... then two hours... then I'd go there after class and stay until I had to run up to Buntrock as the caf was closing.  I don't know how much weight I lost, and that really had nothing to do with me being there.  The point is, I realized that I was living with this unsettled feeling of something being wrong and unresolved in my life outside of the gym.

Which is where I am now.  Now that I'm settling into my job, depositing a few paychecks, and putting together a living space I'm excited about, one of my old discarded worries is resurfacing.

I'm lonely.

Back in The Bubble, my friends and I would sit around in the quad on a sunny afternoon, eating ice cream and dancing around barefoot, and worrying that once we left St. Olaf we wouldn't be able to meet anyone as cool as the people we were with.  We always reassured each other, "Oh, but you're interesting and fun and smart... and plus you're cute!  You won't have any trouble at all."  And I legitimately put it out of my mind as a non-issue.

But here I am, stuck in between 5 different highways, 15 minutes from just about any-where, and I don't know which-where to go.  I know that I could meet people I'd get along with at a poetry open mic: there are none, it seems, in the entire state of Delaware.  (Guess I'd better go to Philly...?)  I could meet people at a coffee shop, if I went there often enough.  I could meet people in liquor stores or co-ops or bars (not ideal) or even at the post office.  There is the endless problem that 18-to-25-year-olds seem to exist off the beaten track of any place I've ever been: it's the same in Amsterdam, in St. Croix Falls, and even in Queens when I went out with Karin and Audrey.  We're an incredibly hard demographic to tap.  We probably just drink beer with our friends in our basements.

The thing is, it takes time.  I want to meet someone I've seen around often enough, or who knows the people behind the counter at any given establishment, that it stands as a character reference.  Alex wrote me this beautiful email about introductions, and how the most important people in our lives never get introduced because it's too complicated to go into it.  I want that.  But I have to put in the time to get my own character reference and my own inarticulable introduction, and we all know I'm the most impatient person ever.

It will come.  It always does.  It'll hit the breaking point and I'll go and do something drastic that will just blow the whole problem right out of the water.  That's usually how I fix the big things.

And until then I'll just be aware of my anxiety, settle into my new space.  I'll do things I enjoy doing, and on the way there I'll make eyes at hotties in cars that pass me on the highway.  I'll ask for a Saturday off now and then so I can go visit my brother, call my far-flung mainstays on the telephone, and try to track down some Delaware postcards for the far-flung people that have had a positive impact on my life.  I'll make it.  I always do.