A conundrum I have never understood: PEOPLE are simultaneously the most energizing and the most draining element of life.
I love being behind the counter in the Park Office, welcoming and checking in the RVers, dispensing advice, making them laugh, solving their problems, hearing their stories. These interactions (“people-ing” as I jokingly call it) can amp me up to almost a manic state of cheerfulness and energy.
On the flip side, there have been times when I’ve dragged in the front door at day’s end and groaned to hear that Jon has asked someone to dinner, because I’m “peopled out” already and don’t want to see another single person-face, even one I like immensely. (Jon is exempted from that—he’s MY person and doesn’t count as “other”.)
Those two states can happen in the course of the same day, but more often I have strings of days tending to one side or the other—and if I had to guess, I’d say that there’s some correlation to my BiPolar swings. (Being medicated for BiPolar helps prevent those swings from ranging to dangerous extremes—but I’m not medicated clear OUT of my emotional life. And my emotional life has hills and hazards like a golf course at times.)
Sometimes these swings work in my favor. For nearly all of 2020—while I ran the Park from home with “no-contact check-ins,” I was in that cocooning, withdrawing sort of state that felt relief at not “having to people” every day. In fact, that year of quarantine passed absurdly fast.
On the other end, my favorite travel-experiences happen when I’m energetically people-ing—asking questions, hearing stories, collecting recommendations… It’s not that I can’t enjoy a place when I’m in a more withdrawn mode—but I collect more experiences when I’m exuberantly reaching out.
I’d actually like to think that I can sometimes “recharge” in the one mode so I can redeploy the other when it’s called for, rather than being at the random mercy of whatever chemical [im]balance my brain is cooking up. (And truthfully, it’s probably some of each; very few things in life are either/or.)
It’s on my mind in particular because after a week of “soloing” in the Park Office (cheerfulness on demand!!) I am dragging ass today; and because I’ve been reading Paul Theroux’s travel writing. Theroux’s descriptions of place always include—in fact, are often predominated by—people in that place. Clearly he chats up practically every body that crosses his path, because he writes about details like the soccer team favored by the fellow with whom he sheltered in a doorway from a rainstorm, and whose home he later visits for dinner…
That’s what set me thinking: If I were sharing a rainstorm-doorway with a stranger this morning, I’d leave without knowing their name. On a differently-charged day, I might leave with that dinner invitation.
It’s one of the reasons why travel-in-a-sailboat appeals to me. (Or, okay, in an RV. But for me, a sailboat.) Namely, because your “home base” travels with you—that little piece of familiarity to use like a quiet charging station when you need one. To have that and see new places?—that has to be the best of both worlds. Especially if I also have the energy for people.
Kana's Chronicles 