I live my life in a fairly large sphere of silence, and I guess I make it that way. It’s not that I am not without noise and distraction around me, because I am usually busy doing something with the TV or a radio on nearby, feeding me music and talk. I just don’t interact a lot with people these days.

And I suppose it’s not much different now than it has been in the past.

And I am sure if you wanted to, you could do a pretty good psych write-up on me because of this about me. I am a low-entanglement personality.

I’m not fully sure why that is.

No doubt some of it is because of my natural tendency towards introversion. I just naturally lean into solitude.

Some of it is also certainly because of a history of soft boundaries. I have in the past felt easily overran by strong personalities. I am not the most assertive or aggressive person, so what is the best way to keep from being talked over or talked at or conversationally overwhelmed? Avoid talking.

Avoiding talking doesn’t do much to quell loneliness, but at least it abates anxiety to some extent.

Some of my it is also simply due to plain old trust. I’d love to say I am a centered, warm, open-armed sort who is comfortable with people rolling in and out of my life, but I’m not. My moat and castle are sizeable enough, and I keep the drawbridge up and the gates closed too much.

I can’t say I’ve always been like this. Even within the last 6 years or so, spending hours each week striving to serve at my church was an exercise in trying to get outside of myself, although much of it was also a genuine move of compassion to want to benefit the lives of others.

In time, though, my love tanks were drained, without refreshment from the place I was serving at. And I shut down again.

I’m also sure that I am a little more selfish about my life and time than I use to be, certainly to my ultimate detriment. Entanglement is a frightening proposition.

So, because I spend an exorbitant amount of time in the castle, I am grateful to have family nearby who kind of understand these peculiarities about me and help me to get outside of myself.

I feel I am back at square one with the friendship thing, trying to figure out how to do that. I am not doing well sustaining most of those.

I am grateful I got to spend the morning with my wonderful Mom and my super awesome sister at the Southwest Chocolate and Coffee Show at the city fairgrounds this morning. We had a fun time sampling products, and we came home with much more than we probably expected to, because so many items for sale there were fantastic.