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| "Patience, darlin' patience." from Dazed and Confused |
In some ways, I'm having to be more social than I've ever been - and not in easy ways. Extroverts are great at certain situations, and dreadful at others. In reality, I speak only for myself, but I prefer to speak for everyone; I consider my every word and thought a deep, profoundly nourishing healing explanation for all mammals on the planet.
And I don't see anything wrong with that.
Guess what extroverts are great at: Being hospital patients. If you are a nurse or doctor or even that guy who just pushes patients from MRI to MRI, I'm your girl. I'm here for you, baby. Let me make this the best five minutes of your day. You are working hard for me, and I will work hard for you. And if you're the pusher-guy, I might make things fun by slipping the sheet over my head so that visitors in the halls think you're pushing a dead body. I know, I know, you think it won't be funny, but it will. You look like more fun than Larry from last shift.
If you are the team doing tests and scans on me, believe me this will be the most fun (and possibly uncomfortably inappropriate) hour of your life. Because I know you work on a lot of very sick people. You've had a hard day, Honey. But that's all about to change. I only had the cute kind of stroke and we're about to have fun. I have no qualms joking about drugs, your coworker who unplugged my beeping heart monitor so I could sleep, or the fact that this size 3XL gown somehow hasn't managed to cover my ass for the last three days. By the way, while you're here, grab a stapler for crying out loud. There's got to be a way to make this miu miu work for both of us.
The poor guys doing my angiogram were blessed (cursed) to have me twice in a week. If you think I have poor personal boundaries when we're strangers, just wait 'til we're friends. You don't get to wear a lot of clothes for an angiogram, and during the second one I said, "Right now, I wish I didn't know y'all so well." And one said, "Or you mean you wish you knew us BETTER?!" And we laughed and laughed...because probably that statement was actionable.
But enough about lawsuits, the party is over. The extrovert is back home, wheeling and dealing. Now it's all one-on-one meal deliveries and sweet people offering to help and take me to Target. A few years ago I would have struggled with this. I'm better at interacting with two humans at a time than one. And even with two humans, I'm imagining you are six. Because a group is easy and light and fun. But one-on-one...well that can get intense. However, it turns out, I love it. You are all very gracious and kind. I'm sorry I ever imagined there were six of you. One of you is a perfect amount. You need no backup singers. I apologize humbly for imagining them.