What's In Your Suitcase?

I admit that YouTube takes up more of my free time than most other things, but I generally come across some gems during that time.  I've been really into watching TED Talks lately, some of my favorites being Ron Finley, Amanda Palmer, and Karen Walrond, but today I came across Susan Cain:  The Power of Introverts.

While I am slowly but surely making my way to extrovertedness, (sorry, I make up lots of words that sound right to me) I am reminded that it is ok to lean more towards the introvert side of the social scale.  Make no mistake about it, I am a talker.  The constant stream of my voice often gets on my nerves, but I am a talker only in the right company.  As a teenager I started to feel like being an introvert was a bad thing.  I wanted nothing more than to stay home and read than to hang out with anyone.  Friends started to drift away and I couldn't blame them and that's when I started thinking that there was something very wrong with wanting alone time.  And honestly "alone time" was already scarce living in a household  of seven.

While Susan Cain was telling her camp story I could totally relate.  I often had people who asked me to put down the book and socialize more.  During my senior year during the varsity pom line awards ceremony, while other girls on my team won awards like "Best Choreographer" or "Best High Kick", I won the "Bookworm Award" because during practice I would read while doing our stretches and I would read during assemblies before and after it was our time to perform.  I felt guilty that I had chosen to read instead of trying to get to know my team more.

So during my college years I started trying my hardest to do collegey things.  Be outgoing, strike up conversation with strangers, go to parties at people's houses whom I didn't know.  I wasn't good at it.  The moment I would leave the house to go somewhere I felt a whole lot of regret.  The only friends I made were those who approached me, all extroverts of course!  I admired those types and was fascinated by how easy it was for them to have such a good time with other people who weren't their close friends or family.

In my profession, as in most, I have to be social. Constantly social. And I'm glad for it.  It's helped me find interest in getting to know strangers and realizing that we all have more similarities than we do differences.  But now when I look around my classroom filled with 8 year old students and I try to make everyone talk and be apart of our team and share everything that is on their minds, I have to realize that that way of learning isn't for everyone.  It wasn't for me back when I was a kid.  I am not that way even now.  I am not a "quick thinker" who blurts out a grillion ideas when asked the solution to a problem.  I personally don't think that thinking should be quick.  I like to take my time absorbing the situation and troubleshoot by running many possible scenarios/solutions in me head, and sometimes I don't like to share out my answer with the group because I am still working it out.  And that's ok.  That's another way to think and do and learn.

What I take from this video is #1: being at peace with all those times that I wanted to be left alone with a book instead of socializing and #2: letting my introverted students have their time when they need it.

You aren't strange/weird/different for wanting time on your own.  You don't need to feel guilty about it either. In my "suitcase" I have sassiness, laughter, love, kindness, craftiness, and hope.  I do feel like I am "opening my suitcase" a lot more and sharing what I've got with the world and I know that's a good step in the right direction.  Remember to do as Ms. Cain says and open up your suitcase every now and then.  You are sure to have something in there that the rest of us need.

P.S.  To this day I still only carry purses that are big enough to hold a book in them.