Baby stepping towards change and going to a tweet-up

If you have been reading this thought dump of mine better known as a blog for any length of time, you know that in many ways the past several years have been about me finding myself and making peace with the world as it is. Fighting life and fighting reality is hard, or at least it is for me. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to adjust my lens rather than to expect that I can change others. I can’t change others, hell, I barely can change myself.

One of my constant struggles has been around the growing sense of isolation that I have living in Maine. I am a weird hybrid, I am both an introvert and an extrovert, and I straddle the line well. Too much time alone with my thoughts is a bad thing because once I go inside; I go too deep and can get sucked into the swirling vortex of my thoughts where my ego becomes the queen. It’s really a messy place. I need time with people on a fairly regular basis but too much time with others is also messy as I find myself absorbing too much of other people’s energy and if that energy is off in anyway, to be honest it fucks me up. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect anyone to be upbeat all the time; I just need to be mindful of what’s around me.

That said, when you live in a place where the number of people you can actually call up and suggest getting together with wouldn’t even fill up one hand, you know you have a problem. Hell, I am sure the people I know are tired of me asking do they want to get together. I know my needs and I know other people have their needs and when they don’t match up, change is needed.

However at a certain age going out and initiating new friendships is about as appealing as a root canal. To start with, new friendships involve opening up and being vulnerable and while I am really digging Brene Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability, application is still harder than theory.

The past few weeks have been scary but also exhilarating as I have found myself taking baby steps to connect with people I have only known as acquaintances. The end result has been glimmers of hope that maybe I can make a home here and eventually build a tribe of my own as I am convinced the older I become I need a tribe, a village, a crew…people I can count on in good times and bad.

Last night though was a big step for me in breaking out of my shell; I have been a user of Twitter for the past 3-4 years. In that time I have met a handful of locals from Twitter but I have never been bold enough to venture to a monthly tweet up. Tweet-ups for those not in the know are gatherings for folks who have met on Twitter. Here in Southern Maine, we have a thriving Twitter community though most twitter users tend to live in the big city and not out in the sticks like me. For months now I have toyed with the idea of going to a tweet-up but never actually taken the step. I won’t go into the reasons why I had never gone but the real reason was fear, fear of feeling uncomfortable, after all what if all these seemingly decent folks turned out to be creepy or what if they thought I was creepy? What the hell would I say?

I am happy to say that last night after much back and forth I actually left the house and headed into the city for the tweet-up and had a blast. Thankfully there were faces there that I already knew and I had a chance to meet quite a few people I didn’t know. I made it back home a little after 10pm which is late on a school night especially after a few Cosmos and while I did wake up a bit tired this morning, it was a good tired. I think there is already talk of a few of us ladies of twitter going out dancing…yikes; I haven’t done that since Chicago.

It’s easy to talk about making changes in our lives but for some reason, actually making them is harder…so very hard. I suspect creating the life I want will take some time and I will even have setbacks (was momentarily bummed that an acquaintance I wanted to hang out with didn’t return my text, but that’s life) but one of the lessons I am learning in my journey called living is that sometimes getting the life we want means baby stepping towards that change. The village won’t just knock on my door, so I am going out and creating my village, one person at a time.

8 thoughts on “Baby stepping towards change and going to a tweet-up”

  1. So true.
    I was watching your tweets like a damn cliffhanger…will she go? Will it be good? 🙂 Which only made me think that I need to “get a life”.

    Thankfully, last nite was monthly gals nite for me and 3 friends/former coworkers. It’s the only real group I have since moving to the burbs and having kids. Old, close friends are far away, most on their own social islands.

    I share being right on the line of intro and extrovert, and I learned something from the way you described it in terms of energy. Thanks for the heads up.

    • LOL, trust me I was soooo on the fence. I literally had sent a friend a text that I wasn’t coming and 10 minutes later, I just said eff it. It was really a good time.

  2. I feel everything about this post. My life back in the big smoke was filled with zillions of buddies and just a few really close friends. Here in Maine…I have my best friend, aka husband, and the people I work with, and one friend who just had a baby – who I see maybe once every two months. I am not even at the baby step point yet. It it really is hard…

    • Roxanne, I was like you for a very long time. Literally just my hubby and 1-2 pals who also had small kids or babies. I think the tipping point was when my now 7yo started school and that created more me time. So hang in there!

  3. Being both introvert & extrovert is a GOOD thing, dear. It means you are well balanced…..too much either way is just plain goofy. Keep up the good work and “soldier on” as the Brits say.

    • I agree, there is something to be said for being equally balanced but it is harder to maintain that balance and it’s taken me time to get it right.

  4. Based on your tweets, it was clear you really were enjoying and enjoyed yourself — and your adult beverages (ha!). Glad you ventured out. Baby stepping is true.

    • I really did and the drinks were quite amazing. Of course at $11 a pop they should have been.

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