Learnings of an introvert who went out three nights in a row
Note to self...what were you thinking?
Photo of a baby Poorna
I didn’t know I was an introvert when I was a child. During a particular time in my childhood, which was spent growing up in India for a few years, being part of big family celebrations were a regular occurrence. We would be surrounded by a sea of cousins, our little brown bodies playing outside the apartment block in the communal courtyards flanked by coconut trees. Ferried around from house to house eating from giant pots of food placed on the kitchen table, mutton curry, fried prawns crisped in semolina, dal flecked with mustard seeds. Dragged along to parties – even the ones where there was smoking, dark rum and Madonna playing on a cassette deck - because leaving your children at home wasn’t really a thing people from our community did back then.
I loved spending time with my cousins, but I don’t think I ever liked the parties. They were too much, the shifting moods rubbing together like tectonic plates, a jangling sense of noise and smell and feeling. I much preferred being in smaller groups playing board games, or lying on my bed reading something from the latest haul my sister and I had gotten from the local library. My closest friends in the neighbourhood were two boys, and we’d explore the bones of the house being built nearby. Even now, I feel a fizzing in my teeth at house parties. I prefer the warm nook of the kitchen, the small gathering on the outdoor step.
Back then I wouldn’t have known what the word introvert was, and even if I did, most people incorrectly thought it was shyness or an aversion to going out. I certainly wasn’t shy, or quiet, but I knew from time to time, that when I spent too much time with people, especially big groups of people, I would detach from myself. I’d grow solemn, quiet and my mother would ask me what was wrong. Other people would remark that I was moody, and I would feel as if I was behaving badly, but also felt empty, unable to give them the response they wanted.
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