Hung out with friends I hadn't seen in two years. It was interesting to hear other perspectives about things and how similar some of our experiences are. It helped to talk about things, like our struggles with parents, things we've learned about ourselves, and things we miss and don't miss about pre-pandemic life.
They talked about feelings of stagnation and how they feel their brains don't work as well as they did before. Their hugs were good and firm and long lasting. We had quite an intense squeeze!
I could see how they aged a little and I couldn't stop staring at them, these familiar faces that I previously knew as thriving artists, now spending most of their time home playing apps and video games and socializing only within a small pod. They changed a little. I still love them.
I made lots of jokes trying to keep the mood light and I hope I wasn't insensitive or annoying. They feel like family to me. Especially knowing them before and after the past couple strange years, and not having been forgotten despite my poor keeping in touch skills. It's nice to see them alive and healthy. I wish I'd seen them more often.
I think seeing them increased my empathy, which is also a little uncomfortable, to be inside someone else's head, their thoughts and feelings colliding with mine and mixing up my brain that has been hermetically sealed off from the world for awhile now. Now I feel invested in their lives and struggles and am rooting for them and worry like a mother. They're my chosen family. Do they know I love them? I think they know.
Socializing again has me already doing my social anxiety worrying whether I said the right things, hoping I didn't injure their minds in any way or talk too much. Hoping I didn't stay too late or impose or come off as arrogant or rude. Overthinking after the fact. Was I good for them? Is socializing supposed to feel like that? Laced with fear of triggering someone? I want no one to feel bad ever. To the point where I almost make myself feel bad even when probably nothing is wrong?
I warned that I was out of practice socializing and joked "am I doing it right?" I wasn't anxious at the time actually though. I was just taking it all in, absorbing their faces, their hugs. It was so interesting to reunite. Had 2 years really passed? or 2 minutes? or 20 years? All of those felt true. Time is strange. Life is strange. I'm glad we've survived it thus far.
7:58 a.m. - 2021-10-30