I’ve written about how I’ve become much less social compared to how I was before. I know a lot of that is because of the pandemic and my hesitation to feel like things are normal again so I’m not really going out the way I did. But also, a lot of events that I used to go to still aren’t back yet. But besides not going out as much, I don’t have as many friends who live in LA as I did before. A lot of my friends moved in the past 2 years. All of them had reasons they wanted to move and they all are thriving in their new cities. But that doesn’t make me miss them less. And as so many people know, it’s really hard to make new friends as an adult. And even harder when you aren’t going out much and meeting new people.
Even though my friends aren’t all local anymore, I do make efforts to maintain those friendships. I’m lucky that those friends are the type of friends that you can just text each other random stuff for a while but when you have time for a phone call or a hangout, things pick back up exactly where they left off and there’s no awkwardness. Those are the truest type of friends to me. Those relationships are strong enough that they don’t need regular maintenance. And I think because of how things have gone over the past few years, most of the friendships that I still have are that type of friends whether they live in LA or not.
But of course, I miss seeing my friends that I was used to seeing on a regular basis who don’t live here anymore. I haven’t been able to see most of them because everyone is busy. But I always hope that either they will be back in LA for some reason or I will have a chance to travel to where they are so I can see them again. What has happened has been random chance visits from friends because they are in town and need a place to stay. That happened over the summer when a friend needed a place to stay for a night when they were here for a wedding. And I got another random overnight guest earlier this week.
I hadn’t seen my friend Dani since she surprised me for my birthday last year. I miss our Disney days and going to musicals with her, but I know that she’s been loving her new city. And we keep in pretty regular contact via text so we both know what’s going on in each other’s lives. And the other night, she texted me to see if she could crash at my place that night. She was flying and had a layover at LAX, but due to delays, she didn’t make her connecting flight and the airline wasn’t paying for a hotel. She didn’t mind that I only had an air mattress and not an actual bed for her to stay in, so I told her that I’d love to get to see her and let her stay here.
It was the best unplanned hangout. She got here really late and we both had to be up really early the next morning, but we still got a few hours of hangout time in. It was so awesome to get to catch up in person instead of via text. We’ve both had a lot of changes happen in our lives, but I think we both have grown in really great ways. And she had only seen my condo in photos and videos, so I wanted to give her the tour. I haven’t been able to show off my place to too many of my friends, and I love how everyone agrees that it’s the perfect place for me and it really feels like it’s my home. And Dani has done renovations before too, so I had asked her a lot of questions while the work was being done and I was so happy to show her how everything turned out.
I wish that she and I could have had more time to hang out, but we both needed to get sleep before getting up early the next morning. And I will be up where she is located next month when I’m doing some family stuff, so there’s a chance we will get to see each other again then. I’m not sure of my schedule yet when I’m there, but I’m hoping there will be enough free time to meet up somewhere to continue catching up.
It is always nice when I make plans with friends and have something to look forward to. But it’s just as nice when getting to see my friends is a surprise and happens with no planning. I’m just lucky any time I get to see friends, especially those who have moved away, and I am always grateful for whatever time I can have with them.
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