Rowdy: Noisy and disorderly.  A ruffian, troublemaker, lout, hooligan, thug, hoodlum, tough, yahoo, punk, knuckle-dragger.

I don’t believe that I’ve every been referred to as rowdy before.  I tend to be the one at the table who laughs at all the funny things going on, but I am very seldom noisy and disorderly.  And although I love the term “knuckle-dragger” here in the list of synonyms, the people I was hanging out with were anything but knuckle-draggers.  For me, knuckle-dragger connotes someone of low intelligence, but the people I was with were anything but.  This was a group of highly educated, highly intelligent people letting off some steam after a couple of days of long intense meetings.  And it was FUNNY!  I hadn’t laughed that much in a while and it felt good.

So, how can an introvert be rowdy, you might ask?  You might be assuming that introverted means shy and quiet, so therefore, if you’re rowdy, you’re not an introvert, but that is not necessarily the case.  An introverted person CAN be shy and quiet, but introversion refers more to how a person needs to recharge, and in my case, I need to be alone and quiet.  A lot of introverts have learned how to deal with social situations like last night, and so it doesn’t mean that we don’t have fun with groups of people.  And these people brought out the best in me in terms of conversation because it was quick witted and intelligent.  It kept me on my cerebral toes, so to speak.

My problem earlier in my life was not understanding that I needed time to recharge.  I thought back to my childhood and teenage years, and with all the stress and busy-ness, I don’t remember thinking intentionally about recharging but I think I did it naturally.  I spent time in my room by myself when I was working on something.  I went on solitary bike rides for hours.  I would go over to the school across the street and hit tennis balls off the wall.  I would get lost in a good book.  I think I actually helped myself through extremely stressful situations because of these things.

And then I became an adult, and with that transition comes adult responsibilities and work and children.  And no alone time.  It’s hard to explain how it feels when I don’t get to recharge, other than to say I get overwhelmed and anxious, and it affects my thought processes in a negative way.  And these feelings just seem to increase the longer I go without the recharge.  And for some reason I didn’t put two and two together to figure out that I needed to save time for myself.  I misinterpreted it as being lonely and fearful and I would take it out on people around me.

When I finally came to the realization that something was not right (I’m a little slow), I started reading all kinds of books telling me I needed to make time for myself.  Right – when?  And it seemed so selfish.  There were people counting on me so while it sounded nice, I just couldn’t do it.  Until this past summer when I started writing this blog.  It’s time I spend in quiet with my thoughts for about an hour.  I also started taking time to watch TED talks and thinking about them.  I also started reading again alone and in the quiet.  It’s amazing how I feel once I take some time for myself this way.  I have so much more energy for doing things and hanging out with people than I did before.

But sometimes I need to give some explanation to my friends/colleagues because I purposefully now walk away from group activities or turn down invitations when I sense I need to give myself some quiet time.  Like last night with all of those wonderful people at the rowdy table.  I was invited to go with them to stay rowdy for a little longer after dinner and I did for a little while, but then excused myself.  In the past I would have let them talk me into staying and then I would have been stressed about getting ready to fly home and getting enough sleep.  Instead, I gave everyone a hug and explained that I needed to get my quiet time and wished them a fun evening.

So, I hope my friends and colleagues will understand when I turn down an invitation or don’t join them in the faculty lounge for lunch.  It’s just that I need some recharge time and I know I have a crazy schedule coming up.  The busier I get, the more I have to be aware of this need to spend some quiet time alone.  And then perhaps I can have some more fun at the rowdy table another time.