Yes. I am frequently told not to think/care/plan/worry/do/feel/empathize so much, but I don’t want to be less...I want others to be more, or for them to at least meet me half way.
As a child, my family was ALWAYS telling me stuff like this. There were other outliers in my family, but I was definitely the most emotive. Now, I mostly keep my "excesses" to myself or allow myself to share in smaller doses with different people so as to not overwhelm any one person too much. Though the odd person on the bus thinks I'm a crazy lady!
Thankfully, DH loves me exactly as I am, even if he doesn't always understand me.
Changing jobs often does at least satisfy my need for novelty
This! Being in law, I'm in a fairly specialized field so it would be pretty tricky to start all over again. Without getting into too much detail, thankfully, I'm able to change jobs often anyway. It helps! But as with many others, I also have to find enriching experiences outside of work as well - new languages, instruments, voracious reading, volunteering opportunities, etc.
Fortunately, I have recently joined an extremely quirky meetup group that I think might actually include my peeps and offer some true intellectual comradery.
What kind of group? Some of us might want to seek out something similar! Though I do find that I can find little niches everywhere - people interested in languages, some who love theatre, etc. So it goes back to Dude's polyhedron analogy.
I also relate to almost everything posted above, especially the compulsive drive toward self-improvement and learning.
This feels strangely therapeutic to me! Thank you to all of you who have shared. Hopefully this thread could morph into an ongoing one somehow: This could be somewhere where we share some of the thoughts and feelings we can't necessarily share elsewhere.
