Exit Extro, Enter Intro

Growing up, I always had a reputation for being an extrovert, a joiner. I always had these big slumber parties for my birthday (shared with my sister, whose birthday was a week before mine), where I'd invite 5 or 6 of my closest friends. I rode bikes and roller skated around the neighborhood, and I became a bit of a tomboy because I lived in a neighborhood with all boys. I figured out that if I had a set of Constructicons and knew the rules of touch football, I'd be allowed to play.

In junior high, I made it as an extra in the school musical and made the J.V. volleyball team. By high school, I was adding extracurriculars left and right. I was junior class president and yearbook co-editor. I was president of the speech and drama team. I was a member of nine different clubs or teams during my senior year.

In college, I was a party girl. I went out three or four nights a week. I went to bars and parties all the time. I stayed up late. I hung out at the campus coffee house and on College Green all the time. I worked for the student newspaper and served on Student Senate. I took a non-credit bartending class, and my friend Greg and I gave each other piano lessons and put on a concert for our friends. I was not home very much.

When Basil and I started dating, there was some tension. The weekend would roll around and he'd be figuring out what movie we'd watch and what we'd cook for dinner, and I'd be plotting and planning with friends about what bar we'd go to. We had, uh, different ideas about how to spend our free time, to say the least.

I'll never forget the New Year's Eve that we agreed to spend in Columbus at one of Basil's friends' house. She was having a party, and so I agreed. Well...there were about ten people there. All of Basil's usual crew of friends. No one else. My visions of squeezing through a crowd of people to get to the keg were dashed. This would be a night of milkshakes and movies.

I got really, really, really drunk that night.

Eventually, though, Basil and I reached a happy medium of staying in-time and going out-time. I grew to appreciate quiet nights at home, and he came to see that going out to a bar with friends would be fun, too.

Now that we have Petunia, in-time and out-time mean different things. There's sitting around the house - reading, coloring, playing on the computer, watching TV, cooking together, playing dress up or dollhouse, gardening, playing the piano, etc. And there's going out - to a museum, to a restaurant, to a party, to a festival, etc.

And I've realized that I'm more of an introvert than I ever thought. I think that I was always on the go when I was younger because I was unhappy. I had a shitty home life, and I was running. In college, I was rebelling against my upbringing and acting on my low self-esteem.

But now, I have a happy home life. I love my family desperately. I like to sit around the house and do nothing on the weekends and week nights. I could spend a whole weekend playing the piano, cooking, doing a jigsaw puzzle and reading and be perfectly happy. If Basil and I had one complaint about our beach trip, it's that we didn't plan enough time for us to sit around and do nothing.

I still like people, and I (almost) always have fun at parties, festival, dinners and cookouts. But I no longer feel the need to always fill my life up with things to do or places to go. Now there are times when I'm the one who wants to stay home, and Basil wants to go out. Ah, the irony.

And the appreciation for solitude and stillness is something that we're teaching Petunia, too. She is very good at playing by herself. When we all come home at the end of a work/school day, she will go in the family room or up to her room to hang out by herself until dinner is ready. She falls into her world of imagination and paper, or else she plays with her dolls. Or builds a nest out of her blankets. Or 'reads' books. Or dresses herself up as a princess.

Sure, there are times when she wants someone to play with her. She's a kid. She loves her parents, and she likes attention. But Petunia has a need for alone time to keep her batteries charged, and I never thought she'd get that from me.

This weekend promises to be a quiet one - mostly. We're having some friends for a happy dinner tonight (congrats, Nathan!) and dinner with family on Sunday. But I'm looking forward to some serious sitting-around-the-house time where I can try to finish a book or work on the fingering for those pesky runs in Clair de Lune.

Last night, Basil and I made cookies together, and there is nothing I love more than just hanging out in the kitchen with my man. Unless, of course, Petunia is in there baking with us. And then it's pretty much perfection.