I found out today that a good friend is coming into town this weekend, and I probably will not be able to see her (“We’ll be two ships passing in the desert,” I joked). Last week (or the week before?), my godsisters made an unexpected trip out here, and I didn’t get a chance to see them.

There are times when the fact that I am still settling into this new life here seem harder than others. Knowing that people I feel intensely comfortable with are thisclose but still out of reach is one of those times. It throws the loneliness into sharp relief.

It probably doesn’t help that I really don’t have anything planned on this three-day weekend. (And is it really a three-day weekend if every other weekend is a three-day weekend? Probably not. But people keep talking about it being a three-day weekend, which makes it feel like more than it is. Really, it’s just another weekend for me. But I digress.)

I haven’t lived in Maryland for over 13 years, but every time a three-day weekend comes where I don’t have plans, I always miss being there because I know I could be hanging out with some of my favorite people and feeling like I belong.

I am still trying to make friends and connections, which means that I am planning to go to a meet up (if I don’t win the Hamilton lottery–this has got to be my weekend, right? 🙏🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾🙏🏾). I have grown as a person and am fine being my authentic self who doesn’t feel like she’s putting on an act when trying to making connections now, but it is still exhausting being the new person at an event who doesn’t really know anybody.

So far, I have been super lucky in that I keep meeting really interesting people who I can have good conversations with (usually about books or TV, naturally). But there’s always that moment of uncertainty/of not knowing if I will just keep milling about, not having anyone to talk to or if the conversation will peter out. And that uncomfortable silence around strangers is way different than the comfortable silence around people I know.

(You are probably shocked to hear that I can be silent. IT HAPPENS, though probably about as infrequently as you can imagine. But, yes, usually around strangers. Hahaha. And even then…

As an anecdote, every time I went to my writing class this past month, if I got there early enough, I would not stop talking. And I didn’t apologize, but I would just be like, “Listen, I love to talk, and I live alone” and kept jabbering on. Of course, this was after about the third week when there was some rapport built up.)

(One day I will stop digressing. Then again, see previous parenthetical.)

I took a five-hour nap today (when does a nap stop being a nap?) so need to fill the next hour and twenty minutes or so until I inevitably crash again. Perhaps I shall catch up on Jane the Virgin or Kevin Probably? Or I could just go to bed right now. That could also work.