The Hamster Ball of Solitude

I really like people an awful lot. I like social situations, though I want to be in them with at least a few people who I know well- you'll never catch me just crashing a Toastmasters meeting.  I like stuff like public speaking, as long as I really know the subject matter, and I'm good at it.  Some people will identify me as loud. Exuberant.  Pushy. Bossy.  All true, depending on the context, but I'm also shy, quiet, and sensitive, often to an extreme.

The more noticeable attributes there give some people the idea that I'm an extrovert, but I'm not.  I want to be, sometimes, but the fact of it is that all that social stuff I love to do wears me out and makes me absolutely need to just be alone and quiet and inwardly focused for awhile.  Sometimes I can plan that out and have good awareness of what my available energy for interaction is; some days I end up getting hit by an energy-sucking situation and I end up running at a deficit for the rest of the day or until whenever it is that I can get into my hamster ball.

Source: http://sveidt.deviantart.com/art/How-to-Live-with-Introverts-291305760 .  Best I can tell, that's the original artist.

EvilSara posted a snippet from the above comic to Facebook some time back; the 4th image down and it's accompanying caption.  As soon as I saw that I immediately replaced the meditation scenario I use for grounding myself- my safe place became a hamster ball.  Then I found the entire comic today, and nearly cried at the "SOMEBODY GETS IT!" of it all.

I feel like I definitely need to make myself some hamsterball time today, and maybe tomorrow, too.  I'm feeling wrung out and tired.  Jimmy Buffet (Boats, Beaches, Bars, and Ballads) is keeping me in a pretty good place, but I still feel like the bucket is kind of empty and I need to chill with a book and a cat and fill it back up... weekend's coming, you know, even if it's still 4 days away.