My friend Flea has tagged me again with a meme.  This one requires that I offer insight into my personality with descriptors that begin with each letter of my middle name.

I don’t really have a middle name .  But since my first name is hyphenated, I’ll let the second-half of my first name suffice in this instance.

M is for Meditative.  While I often meditate as a form of relaxation and to gain spiritual insight, I don’t mean to characterize myself as meditative in the strictest sense.  What I really mean is reflective.  I had lunch with a friend last week who said this about me:  “You’re a processor, Joan.  You process.”  She was talking about my propensity to talk aloud about my feelings with anyone who will listen.  I’m not so much interested in my emotions as I am in deconstructing the psyche that prompts those emotions.  Sometimes I get the feeling Mr. Mom would prefer I simply say “I’m angry with you” instead of requiring him to sit down with me while I analyze why I’m angry.  I’m sure my friends feel the same way as Mr. Mom but, honestly, I just don’t get people who never wonder why they are the way they are.  I’m with Socrates.  An unexamined life is not worth living.  And I just happen to want to examine your life and mine out loud together.  Should have been a psychologist, huh?  (By the way, an interest inventory recently told me the same thing.)

A is for Analytical. See meditative. 

R is for Relentless.  This is code for OCD.  I’m light on compulsive but heavy on obsessive.  I can go from 0 to 60 in a split second and stay there for a lifetime.  Two of my three Virgo friends -- Alisa and Carole -- are this way, also, and I think it’s one thing I love about them.  I can relate to any dog with a bone, and I’ll even help the poor canine chew on it.  While some view this as an unattractive trait, the ability to persist has come in handy -- in completing degrees, achieving professional goals, pursuing a happy home life.  Everything except improving my tennis game.  I still suck at that.

I is for Introverted. People tell me all the time they don’t believe this, but it’s true.  Even though I put my life on display in multiple ways, not the least of which is this forum, I’m essentially a shy person who would rather write to you than talk to you (unless we’re deconstructing our psyches, in which case I’m all ears).  I’m bad on the phone.  Friends and family will tell you I never call and I’ve been to known to dodge more than a few of their phone calls over the years.  (In fact, before we were married, I once dodged Mr. Mom’s calls for six months.  But that’s a story for another day.) 

E is for Expressive.  My friend Kathy said this about me the other day in the comments section of this blog, but my teachers have said it about me for years.  “Shares opinions freely” is how I believe they put it.  Again, see meditative.  I’m just one big bundle of psychoanalytic energy.

So there you have it.  I’m an introverted, obsessive, analytical freak. 

But you knew that already, right?