Split Personalities

Some days I feel like I have a split personality.

There’s the side of me that loves people. And I truly do. I love being around others, watching them interact with each other, listening to their problems or what makes them happy, doing things with them, being a good friend. I love being invited to do things with other people (though I have the awful habit of saying yes to everything and then having to cancel on some) and I love even more being able to host other people in my territory. It’s so exciting to have my own apartment, because I want my friends to get comfortable coming over any time they are in the area. Stopping in to say hello or staying for a bite to eat and a movie. I want my home to be others’ home away from home. A place they can feel relaxed.

It feeds on my childhood dream to be that friendly neighbor whose “open-door” policy becomes second nature to all my friends. They know they can stop in any day, any time perhaps even with complete strangers or little kids in tow…and find me ecstatic to cook a delicious meal, pull out the games or movies and truly care about who they are and what they need in a friend.
It makes my heart happy to connect.

Then there’s the side of me that loves solitude. Not all the time or every day. Just at set times of the week or month. Call me crazy, but I think it would be amazing to spend a whole week by the ocean or on the top of a mountain, soaking in the silence and reveling in the majesty of nature. I get a lovesick giddiness when I’m around that sort of beauty. Love it. I am revived and refreshed when I spend time alone and quiet. Just me, a journal, a couple books.

It makes my heart glad.

So here I am, split in personality, thinking how awesome it is to have constant companionship from people I care about (which is pretty much everyone…I rarely meet a person I don’t like!), but then excited at the prospect of pure silence.

What is a person to do when they are ruled by such opposite loves?!