I may have stepped into an antbed of controversy on this one, so restrain your knee-jerk reaction as I delve into the essence of gray. I know, I know – touchy subject. At the root of gray there are two fundamental controversies that divide people the world over:

1) Is it even a color (since it is born out of the non-colors black and white)?
2) How in the world do you spell it (I actually prefer grey, but what do I know?)?

I know, now you’re all hot and bothered that I went there; stick with me.

I love gray.

I don’t really wear a lot of gray, and I don’t really have any gray in my house, but it’s my favorite time of day. I love the gray of day – just before dawn and right at dusk. One of my favorite, favorite things is to sit in my house during the gray with blinds open. No lights burning. No sound disrupting – except the whir of the heater (I never notice the air conditioner running during the summer, but my heater speaks comfort into my morning). Everything in the room looks gray and nondescript – even me. I can just fade into my surroundings and ponder and pray and disappear for a moment.

I usually miss the gray at dusk, and I don’t always catch the gray at dawn, but when I do, it’s always a little something special.

Highly recommend that you schedule some gray into your day sometime soon!

What a cool, cool privilege to go out as a country and cast our votes today! I do love voting although I have to admit it only took me about thirty-five minutes at 2:00, so that may have something to do with my sustained enthusiasm. I don’t know though, because there was such a neat vibe among the voters as we queued through the interior of the fire station: two lines to check-in and one line for voting. One of my favorite parts of the experience was that whoever was the last person in the voting line had to hold up a handmade sign that read “END” for others to be able to easily find the end of the line. As new prospective voters lined up, you passed the sign on down the line. So cute and humble and brilliant, I thought.

As a high school teacher, I taught a class called Strategies for Success. It was required for all freshmen, and it was a super duper (dooper?) class. I’ve taught in places where the required freshman class was a bad joke, but this was the real honkin‘ deal. The class curriculum was built on Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (phenomenal book!), and we spent a concentrated chunk of time on Myers-Briggs personality testing. It was through my preparation for this course that I learned a ton about myself – I am an INFJ if that means anything to you.

The I in INFJ means that I am an introvert – a borderline introvert. I remember being surprised by the results, but my introvert/extravert numbers were very close. An introvert (as described by M-B) may really enjoy being with people, but he/she is left drained by a lot of interaction. Conversely, an extravert is energized by interaction. As a speaker/teacher I am loud, animated, and constantly moving, and nothing in all the earth energizes me like that! But that is still limited interaction. When greeting at church and in certain social situations I can be charged up by interaction, but for the most part I derive energy from being alone.

Another characteristic of an introvert is the tendency to think before speaking; extraverts think and process as they speak. I have often missed opportunities to contribute in conversations or discussions because I was chewing too long on what to say (some of you are not buying it, but it is so…). I have gotten way better at this over time, but there was a time when I could not participate in a conversation with several real extraverts. I wasn’t fast enough. In fact, in college I took a Spanish placement test as a freshman and landed in junior level Spanish. I could read and write the language well, but this was a class where only Spanish was spoken. My professor would call on me to answer rapid-fire questions, and I would choke every time. If I am a borderline introvert in English, I am an off-the-chart introvert in Spanish. I couldn’t think through what I wanted to say quickly enough to answer her questions. I made an office visit in tears, and she was so kind. She stopped calling on me in class 🙂

So all of this has me thinking how great blogging is for introverts. It doesn’t require face-to-face interaction; it allows time to process before broadcasting, and there isn’t competition for getting a word in quickly enough. So, that led me to wonder how many I’s out there are enjoying the accommodations of blogging?

What are you? An innie or an outie?

And one more thing, I find myself becoming more extraverted as I age, and Chris (who was a strong E is becoming more introverted). Any ideas on how that happens?