I start most of my days unremarkably – fidgeting through the short coordinates of tasks required to unlock and silence my phone-as-alarm-clock. I’m sure it’s at least 83% rote muscle memory, but the short sequence is varied just enough in dexterity and cognitive requirements that I’m irrevocably awake by the time the noise stops.

But bed is warm. Bed is good. Still is good. So in ceding the fight between how I am and how I wish I was, I split the difference by setting up my morning meds, caffeine fix and a small “pre-breakfast” on my nightstand before going to bed; then when I wake up, I thank Cheese for #firstworld technology, toss the pills down the hatch, and burrow in with my fizz and furchild to quickly thumb through email and facebook for anything urgent, then spend another hour or so catching up on the news.

I make it a priority to read a handful of sources from varying perspectives; but I also make it a priority to not just Hoover through a bunch of facts and circumstances, but to read columns, and editorials, and essays – the things that tell you how those facts and circumstances are affecting the world around you, and how other people – people like you, people very unlike you – are interpreting those facts and circumstances.  The things that get to the heart of why the facts matter in the first place.

Do I want to know what I’m talking about before engaging in a conversation about it? Of course. For me, the why has always been the reason for knowing the facts in the first place, and the thing worthy and in need of discourse. Why is it happening? Why does it matter? Why is this person, or group, or place, more affected than this other? Why has it changed? Why hasn’t it changed?

But lately, I’ve been just sort of uneasy about how…well, honestly? How vapid many of my conversations seem to have become. It started off somewhat intentionally, if I’m honest, though (as always) with the best of intentions. In short, I just wanted a break from being everyone’s “thinky friend” at best; and if I’m being really honest, to see if I could do anything about the creeping suspicion that I was truly, deeply loved, but frequently also humored, or tolerated, by those around whom I let my guard down. For lack of better phrasing, I wanted to try to give people a break.

I always have been and will be intense, period; relatedly, I’ve never been one much for small talk among good friends; I’m not going to strike up a policy debate with a sales associate or fellow air traveler (don’t get me wrong, I’ll totally take the bait and go there if you want to, I’ve just at least –finally – learned not to start it). But I’ve just never understood the point of, or been very good at, spending a three hour lunch with a girlfriend or a night at the bar with a guy I’m getting to know… talking about nothing but clothes, or TV plots, or workouts. I go deep, fast, and am most comfortable treading there -  but most of all, it’s not intentional, or a concerted effort – it’s genuinely just how I think and talk and operate, and is just as natural and default-mode for me as the more, erm, normal? conversations are for (presumably) a lot of other people.

So after I came to the shocking realization that what I find “stimulating” many folks find “draining”, then getting over my frustration (and mild resentment) that if it’s not the way most of the my world works, it doesn’t much matter that I happen to find extended, little-else-but-skimming-the-surface interactions equally exhausting; I went about trying to start with what is, rather than what “should” be, and adapt accordingly.

Theoretically speaking, this meant – or I intended it to only mean – not being the one to start the conversations about the “deep stuff”, keeping a keen eye out for when I’m going there by someone else’s definition when I’m not by my own, and trying to bob around where other folks are most comfortable, most of the time, so that when I drag them in to the deep end and force them to stay there with me a minute, they know it’s because it matters, and not because I just think it’s fun to watch people sweat and shiver at the same time.

Practically speaking, it’s meant choking on a lot of urgency on my part, confusion and frustration over where to “hook the buoys”, so to speak, and spending the better part of six months either remaining relatively aloof and quiet, or verbally vomiting one of a handful of pop culture facts at random tangentially-related to the topic at hand in a woefully failed attempt to interact without dragging people into the deep end against their will and without swimmies, and rekindling some mild social anxiety in the process.

But most of all, it’s meant not greater peace or ease in my relationships, but a palpable resignation and apathy on my part; a subconscious, piecemeal drift away from even knowing and caring about “the things” myself, until one day not long ago I woke up and started to “read the news” as I always do, and read a few fluff essays on gender politics, and pop psych in business pieces…but mostly advice columns, and vegan mommy fitness blogs instead. And then realized that’s really all I had read for at least a week or so. Nothing (much) against either, but I’m neither being cheated on nor questioning my parentage, and I’m a sworn-childless unmarried twentysomething who can be brought to the verge of tears by really good pork belly and fantasizes about bopping little calorie counting gym-bunny-foo-foo upside *her* head for once.

Methinks I just might hath swung too far in that fair, far, most opposite of directions. Such that perhaps, I might actually be somewhat responsible for the aforementioned, disproportionately vapid balance of content of my passive information streams these days. Maybe I’m not seeing the conversations, sometimes, precisely because I’m not starting them.

So #sorryI’mnotsorry, but yeah, I’m reading and watching real news again. And slowly, finally, caring about real news again. Like, a lot. And while I’m still going to work to keep the font-of-current-events at a gentle trickle instead of a firehose, I’m going to keep honoring the part of me that feels sincerely put upon to actually talk about what I hear, and see, and think about going on in the world.

I’m going to trust that just as I would never expect – or even want – my fitness-obsessed friends to just shut up completely and never talk to me about anything physical, physical, let’s…get… – because it’s part of who they are, and what makes them passionate, and happy, and them – that the people who care about me most will want me to stay true to that fire, my armchair senator, stuck in traffic daydreaming about how to solve the world’s problems. And I’m going to trust that for some folks, they keep me around partly because I make them think about certain things. Like, make them. Force feed it.

So here they shall be, your mid-week Brain Wheaties. The newsy vitamins you know you need, but aren’t particularly inclined to dig past the front pages or first 15 minutes to find. State of the Union coverage, the Pope resigning for the first time in almost 600 years, that batshit murderous rogue cop in California? That’s all above-the-fold stuff – a hop, click and a jump on virtually any news outlet of choice and you’ve got all the deets you need and then some.

For now? If you read nothing else this week, go check out this article in Esquire about the actual individual who fatally shot Osama Bin Laden…and has been left completely hung out to dry: “Unlike former SEAL Team 6 member Matt Bissonnette (No Easy Day), they do not rush to write books or step forward publicly, because that violates the code of the ‘quiet professional.’ Someone suggested they might sell customized sunglasses and other accessories special operators often invent and use in the field. It strains credulity that for a commando team leader who never got a single one of his men hurt on a mission, sunglasses would be his best option [emphasis mine].”

And then come back and give me your best why.