It’s not the first time in my life that I feel something about me is amiss. Feeling out of place is something I can trace back to my earliest childhood, it has become a bit of a second nature to me. It seems hitting 30 meant reaching the point where I was not willing to just assume I was awkward and that something was wrong with me.
After understanding that the reason I was not happy in a relationship was because I was looking in the wrong gender for a partner, these past couple of days brought to me an understanding that represented another aha moment for me. I took the Myers Briggs and in a team of 12 people, there was only one other person more introverted than me – our CFO. Expected, right? But would you expect a 67% introversion from your PR, Communication and Sales person – which is what I am. The discovery blew me away. I finally had an explanation for what I had been feeling – it amazes me how the universe has a way of bringing you to understanding.
Much like my friends’ telling me about love stories along their husbands, the stories about how it is so fun to work in groups, to meet people, to network seemed like foreign language to me. Yet, this is and has been my job for as long as I can remember. Wearing the mask of an extrovert day in and day out was actually the thing that drained me. Granted, I placed the mask on my face daily, of my own accord.
After initially slightly panicking about how will this affect my job, I realised that I am in fact in possession of a key that I would better use to unlock yet other doors to my real self and that there is a hidden treasure I am about to benefit from. So, I got my Susan Cain fix and I am practising: I am Catalina, and I am an introvert. Sounds about as natural as breathing, drinking water or … saying I love you to my female partner.
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