Spoons

For those who have never heard of the spoon theory, see below. I have bastardized it for my own uses.

http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/wpress/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

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My Bestie and I have long drawn out emotional and philosophical conversations when we go on trips together. We talk about everything, my writing, where we are in our lives, relationships, random bits of news and science that often fall back into stories of when we both worked as Hospital Pharmacy Techs. This last trip she pushed me to explain what being an introvert is like. Lisa is the ultimate Extrovert and would have parties and guests over constantly if she did not have to clean up afterwards. We had an hour wait at a restaurant for a table so we snagged seats at the bar and got drinks, her with white wine and me with a bad bourbon and ginger.

The only good explanation I could come up with was spoons. Everyday I get a limited number of spoons for social interactions and once they are used up, that’s it, I am emotionally drained and exhausted. Lisa as an extrovert simply gets more spoons, heck the people whom she interacts with give her their spoons.

Somehow the last few weeks I have used up all my spoons way too fast. Suddenly everything is an effort, talking to random strangers at work, dealing with co-workers, dealing with family, dealing with people at every place I have to be.

I had a minor melt down today after my riding lesson, my main stress relief activity that I had been looking forward to, was killed after 5 minutes of riding a lame horse, after hanging around an extra 45 minutes for the lesson that went long before mine so I could use the tack they were using. My instructor was nice about it but I just did not have the energy to care, she wanted me to ride a young horse she has been training which on a normal day would have been fun but right now as a ball of neurosis I just did not trust myself on a young horse I have never ridden before. Add in the hour long drive there and back and I was fighting not to cry by the time I got home.

So instead of riding I am sitting at home trying to calm myself down enough to go out grocery shopping. Again dealing with people and having to talk to them. Why is something that is so basic such a hard thing for me most of the time?