PEOPLING

               There is a limit to my peopling.  There is a finite to its endurance.  When it is reached, I change.  There is a limit to an introvert’s extroversion. 

               I need quiet and time alone.  My ability to balance depends on this.  It’s a reason I farm—to be alone, no one around, and work with earth and sun.

               Lately, my mornings and evenings have been stressed.  I’m more irritable than usual, ready to push kids out the door for school in the long-draw of ambling linger (which I know I do myself on days my mind’s adrift). 

               At work, we are rebuilding old and worn equipment.  It is a necessary task, and it is one not done alone.  All the day, I work with another—an extrovert—and my normalcy of silence and thought and quiet workings are very different. 

               The shop hammers with the sound of pneumatic tools and wrenches.  Talking is continuous.  At the end of the day, I am more tired from this than I am of the labor. 

               I come home.  I do my best to still give my attentions and time to all who want.  Everyone’s needs and wants are different.  With Owen, I play ping pong; Matthew, wiffle ball—and more conversations in which I mostly listen.  They can tell a difference in me when I’ve reached my peopling limit—even when I try to still fully give. 

               Audrey is in an age and stage where she doesn’t need me much.  She stays mostly in her room in life of middle-school aged mysteries of girls of which I know near or completely.  She is most like me—happy in her solitude, content to be alone.  It is not a punishment, it is a peace; and when she needs more, she goes outside herself and keeps her peace in fellowship with a few close friends. 

               After a day of teaching grade school children, Bridgette is ready for conversation with an adult.  She is tired of people too.  She has hundreds.  I have one; but we are both worn by the end.  We enjoy the solace and closeness of sharing what is left in our minds, what happened and what we felt of a day; and then we are content to give each other space and time to decompress from a day of peopling. 

               I rest.  I read.  I write, restore before peace of sleep.