Finally Choosing Me

I have a social battery.

It is not a particularly impressive battery.

I’m pretty sure it came from the clearance section.

It takes forever to charge, drains considerably faster than advertised, and apparently the warranty expired sometime around 1997.

When it’s running low, I get quiet.

When it’s really low, I get distant.

And when it’s completely dead, apparently my face sends out a message that says:

I would strongly recommend that nobody speak to me right now.

The problem is, the people around me don’t have a little battery indicator floating above my head.

They don’t see:

SOCIAL BATTERY: 2%

They just see me.

Quiet.

Short answers.

Irritated-looking.

Dismissive.

Heading upstairs to my room.

Or deciding that suddenly I need to go somewhere—alone.

And from their perspective, it can probably feel personal.

Usually, it isn’t.

Sometimes I Really Do Need to Be Alone

After a 12-hour night shift, there are days when I feel like I’ve already used every available word.

I get home around 8:30 in the morning.

I unpack my lunch box.

Refill whichever one of my approximately 20 water cups is currently in rotation.

I may have a conversation with Nana—which is considerably more successful if her hearing aids have joined us.

Eva requires acknowledgment, generally by head-butting me with her giant head until I understand that whatever I thought I was doing was less important.

Eventually, I make my way upstairs.

To my room.

My sanctuary.

Lucy is usually there, ready to begin her shift supervising me.

And sometimes closing that bedroom door feels like my entire nervous system finally saying:

Thank you.

No conversation.

No decisions.

Nobody needing anything.

Just quiet.

There are times when I absolutely need that.

But I’ve also learned there is a difference between recharging and disappearing.

And I’m not always very good at recognizing when I’ve crossed the line.

The Problem With My Cave Is That I Really Like My Cave

My room has everything I need.

My bed.

My TV.

My books.

My computer.

My bathroom.

And, of course, Lucy.

Technically, I could remain there indefinitely.

This is dangerous information for someone whose first instinct when overwhelmed is to withdraw.

Because isolation feels good…

until it doesn’t.

At first, I’m decompressing.

I’m enjoying the quiet.

I’m recovering.

Then enough time passes and something changes.

I’m not resting anymore.

I’m avoiding.

I stop reaching out.

I don’t want to answer the phone.

I don’t want to go downstairs.

I don’t want to make plans.

And the more I isolate, the easier it becomes to keep isolating.

Then comes the particularly ridiculous part:

I start feeling lonely.

Apparently, my brain is perfectly capable of saying:

Please leave me alone.

And then, after everyone respectfully leaves me alone:

Wow. Nobody wants to spend time with me.

Excellent teamwork.

Solitude and Isolation Aren’t the Same Thing

I’m still learning the difference.

Solitude can restore me.

Isolation can slowly make my world smaller.

The difficult part is that they can look exactly the same from the outside.

Sometimes they even look the same from the inside.

Both can involve me upstairs in my pajamas with Lucy.

One is giving me something I need.

The other is helping me avoid something I probably need even more.

Connection.

And that’s where this gets complicated.

Because the answer isn’t:

Stop hiding in your room.

I need that room.

I need quiet.

I need time when nobody expects conversation or attention from me.

But I also need people.

Apparently both things are true.

Which seems unnecessarily complicated.

I’m learning that choosing myself doesn’t always mean choosing what feels easiest in the moment.

Sometimes choosing me means closing the door.

And sometimes…

it means opening it again.

Eventually, Something Gets Me Out

So what makes me open the door again?

I’d love to tell you that I’ve developed an impressive amount of self-awareness and can now recognize the exact moment when healthy solitude starts turning into unhealthy isolation.

I have not.

Usually, life just comes looking for me.

I have to work.

It’s bowling league night.

I eventually require food or something to drink.

One of the other inhabitants of the house summons me.

Apparently disappearing completely is difficult when you live with other humans and enough animals to constitute a small petting zoo.

So I emerge.

Sometimes reluctantly.

Sometimes because I have absolutely no choice.

And usually, once I’m out there participating in life again, I’m glad something made me do it.

But there’s another way the door opens.

It happens less often, and it’s considerably harder.

Sometimes I make myself open it.

There are moments when I realize I’ve been in my room long enough.

I’m not resting anymore.

I’m not recharging.

I’m hiding.

And nobody is necessarily coming to make me stop.

That’s when I have to tell myself:

You have to leave this room and participate in life.

I don’t necessarily want to.

That’s the part I think we sometimes leave out when we talk about taking care of ourselves.

We make it sound like the healthy choice eventually becomes the thing you naturally want to do.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes choosing yourself means doing the thing you absolutely do not feel like doing because you’ve finally learned that what feels comfortable right now isn’t always what you need.

I Need the Door. I Just Can’t Lock Myself Behind It.

I don’t want to give up my sanctuary.

Absolutely not.

Let’s not get carried away with personal growth.

My room is still where I recover.

It’s where I can stop talking.

Stop answering.

Stop being available.

It’s where I can crawl into bed, turn on an audiobook, and negotiate sleeping arrangements with a tuxedo cat who somehow owns considerably more of a queen-size mattress than I do.

I need that.

But I’m learning that I also need something on the other side of the door.

People.

Work.

Bowling.

Conversations.

Food.

Laughter.

Annoyances.

The ordinary things that make up a life.

Maybe managing my social battery isn’t about keeping it fully charged.

Maybe it’s about learning what to do when it hits 2%.

Sometimes I need to close the door.

Sometimes life opens it for me.

And sometimes I have to put my hand on the doorknob and make myself walk through it.

Because I’m finally learning the difference between giving myself permission to be alone…

and giving myself permission to disappear.

I can retreat from life for a while without retreating from it completely.

The sanctuary will still be there when I come back.

And so will Lucy.

Probably in my spot.