Member-only story
Fractured By A 50th
Or how I learned to stop worrying and not go to parties.
The last few weeks have been frantic. I have been working at my other job more than usual. There have been a lot of changes around here; including somehow becoming home to more animals than is absolutely necessary. To say I was getting a bit frazzled was an understatement. There is only so much meditation you can do.
Over the last ten years, I have got to know and understand myself a lot better than I used to. I now know that I am an introvert. I enjoy and need peace and quiet and my own space. I have discovered to my great surprise that I actually hate parties and find them draining. In fact, any social gathering with more than a few people takes a lot out of me.
When Ben and I got married, I asked my interstate friends not to come. I didn’t see the point in them all arriving at once and me having no time or energy to spend time with any of them. I obviously didn’t explain this very well as a few were upset. In the year and a half since not one of the people who would have dropped everything and spent hundreds of dollars to come to a party where they would have got to talk to me for a maximum of twenty minutes have found the time or money to visit me.
On Saturday night my friend had a 50th. It was an hours drive away and therefore, an hours drive home. We had an eight-year-old with a set bedtime, so basically we…
