HSP

Tuesday September 14th

D’s birthday. At 8 a.m this morning . F rang  him  in Melbourne to say Happy Birthday Dad, and also  to tell D.  how much money he'd earned busking at the market on Saturday; and to have a little chat about The Footy and who’s in the finals. 

I’ve had a mixed day. It was nice going to the bookshop after school with F. He counted out  forty dollars in small change - his  busking earnings - and bought three books. Dragons, man-eating tigers, boy-heroes etc. Playing ping pong with him when we got home was good too. 

Low point was the computer suddenly quitting the application and not saving my changes - just as I’d completed what I thought was the final version of the Nature Writing piece. Aaaaaargh. I’m so sick of the thing, just want to send it off. 

Chatting with the tuesday morning marimba girls is therapeutic. This morning we discuss whether our male partners are getting grumpier as they get older. On the basis of our informal survey, I’d say at least two out of three husbands get grumpier after turning fifty. Of course we Girls have our own sort of grumpiness too, we admit that. But all it takes is a hug, a sweet self-effacing joke, a bit of a laugh and we lighten up and  let it go! Whereas they hang on and sulk for days.

Is this true? I don’t know. But we have a  laugh. 

Talking of grumpy men: The interminable garden saga. Well at least it is starting to look quite good out there. Although they seem to work awfully slowly - but I daren’t mention it because, well you know why. 

I just wish they’d hurry up, finish, and get out of my space. I  think the reason why I hardly ever get any home maintenance done and the place is falling down around me is because I find it so hard having strangers here in my home and  refuge. Just having a cleaner come every two weeks for a couple of hours is excruciating enough for me. Three workers for  two, nearly  three weeks: I am a wreck!

Lots of people don’t seem to mind this sort of thing at all. People, especially rich people, have nannies and stylists  and gardeners and personal assistants.  Even cooks and maids. I’d be no good as a movie star. And I  would have made a lousy aristocrat because I absolutely could not stand all those maidservants and butlers hovering about the place. Polishing the silver and helping me into my gown for dinner. Erk.

I think I have already admitted here that more than once in the last fortnight I hid out  with the laptop in a corner of  my favourite cafe in town  for hours on end  because I just couldn’t face going home and having to relate to the men in my front yard. Two of them in particular, are always keen to chat. About anything from astrology to ‘the dance between male and female energies.’ (that was today, as I tried to sneak out to the car.)  Oh and occasionally about garden design. I have to walk past them to get to the front door.  The third one - the  quiet, hardworking one - is my favourite.

I’ve wondered at times if there is something a bit pathological about my desire to avoid contact in certain situations. I’ve worried that I was a difficult sort of person - pernickety,  oversensitive, intolerant, aloof. And a terrible procrastinator when it comes to ringing Telstra or going into Harvey Normans. Out in the vexatious noisy, clamouring, high pressure world. I'd rather stay home and read a book. 

Then the other day I came across something on the internet - an article  written by some psychologist, about ‘Highly Sensitive People’. I did the online tick-the boxes ‘Are You A Highly Sensetive Person?’  test. 

Other people's moods affect me, yes, My nervous system sometimes feels so frazzled that I just have to go off by myself, yes, I startle easily, yes, I get rattled when I have a lot to do in a short amount of time, yes, I am bothered by intense stimuli, like loud noises or chaotic scenes, I am conscientious, I make a point to avoid violent movies and TV shows.. Yes, Yes

etc. etc.

According to the article about 15% -20% of the population are HSPs - too many for it to be pathologised, not enough for it to be widely understood. So there, I’m gonna stop beating myself up for being  wimpy. I’ve  re-framed. I’m merely  HSP.  Oh and by the way , us HSPs also have ‘rich,complex inner lives’ ‘are aware of subtleties’ and are ‘deeply moved by art and music’.