Audio version:
Something remarkable happened this Christmas. For the first time I can remember, I made it through the holidays without losing my footing. Our daughter moved closer this year, and our son and his fiancée are living nearby too—a dream David and I hardly dared to whisper aloud. All our homes were alive with the people we love most, but here’s the true miracle: through all the excitement and celebration, I stayed rooted in myself. And it made me wonder—why did this year feel so different? I think I finally understood something about my nature. I recently learned there’s a word for what I am: ambivert.
Ambivert. Such a simple concept, really, someone who isn’t purely introverted or extroverted, but lives somewhere in the middle. Think of it like this: introverts recharge in solitude, extroverts recharge with people, and ambiverts? We need both, often in the same day. We’re the ones who say yes to the dinner party and mean it, but also need those quiet morning hours alone. We genuinely love deep conversations at gatherings, then need to walk home in silence. We’re energized by the lunch date, then need an hour with a book to process it all. It’s not indecision or moodiness, it’s just how we’re wired.
Learning this word was like being handed a map to my own nature. And suddenly, leaving my own party to stand outside and look at the stars for five minutes wasn’t antisocial—it was necessary maintenance.
With this awareness, I stayed loyal to the small things that keep me whole—my morning walk by the winter sea. My moments of peace before anyone wakes up. Permission to step outside during the party for cold air and moon gazing without apologizing.
Small boundaries—but they were everything.
This year, when the holidays wrapped up, I didn’t scramble to find my north star; it was right there within me. I felt whole. Happy and tired, yes, but the good kind—the kind that comes from presence, not performance.
Here’s what I want you to know: the more we understand what we need, the better we can tend to the rituals that keep our feet on the ground. That word—ambivert—wasn’t just vocabulary. It was permission to love the party AND leave it to breathe. Permission to hold space for others AND maintain space for myself.
If you swing between craving people and craving solitude, if you’re the life of the party who also needs to disappear, you’re not complicated. You might just be an ambivert, learning to honor the full spectrum of who you are.
From my corner by the sea, where I’m learning that staying close to myself makes it possible to stay close to everyone else.
