INTROVERT: So I Married an Extravert

Hmm, not always true is it? I had a good friend tell me many years ago that once she turned 40, she didn't care what people thought of her any more. I found myself surprisingly then looking forward to turning 40. But my 40th came and went, and my consistent fear of what others thought of me and what I did or didn't do, stayed firmly front of mind. If anything, it got worse, for a while. I would worry about what I hadn't achieved in my life. About things in my past that I wished I could go back and change. Was I a 'good enough' wife and mum? What's the point of the work that I do? And of course, about whether I should pursue writing, which I'd wanted to do for a long, long time. I am so uncomfortable with confrontation, that the idea of saying or doing something that might offend someone actually makes me freeze, and do...nothing! Putting things off, procrastination, fear of failure. All of these were a daily part of my overthinking (covered in a previous ep...

  I love flowers.  I love how they brighten up a room just by existing. And wallflowers are particularly beautiful, being so determined to shine subtly from amongst the blandness of the grey rock or rust-coloured bricks they are so often surrounded by…  Ok so that’s not quite how others see them, but it’s how I see them. 😉 Then you have the idiom ‘wallflower’, as described on Wikipedia.. "A wallflower is someone with an introverted personality type (or in more extreme cases, social anxiety) who will attend parties and social gatherings, but will usually distance themselves from the crowd and actively avoid being in the limelight. The name itself derives from the eponymous plant's unusual growth pattern against a wall as a stake or in cracks and gaps in stone walls. 'Wallflowers' might literally stand against a wall and simply observe others at a social gathering, rather than mingle. This could be due to anxiety, shyness, lack of social skills or self-esteem." Sig...