Seeing my friends in person has been a rare occurrence since the pandemic. And for the most part, any time I’ve seen someone in person has been a planned out thing. Sometimes it’s planning to see a show or going to a meal. But it usually is something I know is coming so I can be excited about it. And while I miss some of the spontaneity of how life used to be, I’ve also gotten used to planning on when I can see friends. But this week, I was so lucky to get to have a random friend hang out that I didn’t plan for.
A friend of mine posted online that they were wondering if anyone had a paper shredder they could borrow. A few of us offered, but I happened to be the offer that was closest to his house so he asked if he could use mine. I don’t use my shredder that often and I never have anything that needs to be done urgently, so I don’t mind letting someone else use it for a while.
When he was coming over to get it, I didn’t know if he would just come by and pick it up or if he had some free time to chat. I was so happy that he didn’t have anywhere to rush to so he could hang out with me and we could catch up in person. While we have been on a lot of phone and Zoom calls over the past two years, we hadn’t seen each other in person. And as I’ve said before, seeing a friend in person is so different from seeing them virtually. So I was so grateful for this time to catch up and feel connected again to a friend.
And just like so many of my friend hangouts since the pandemic, this one had a pretty big variety in our conversation. It makes sense since it seems like we have to catch up on 2 years of information. It can make things be a bit disjointed, but I love getting to hear all the random things that have been going on that I haven’t heard about yet. And my friend has been busy working on set, so hearing about how that has been going was really interesting. I’ve had a few friends book roles since the pandemic, but nobody that has been working as regularly as this friend. And hearing him talk about all the different precautions being taken and how safe the sets have been. I have no clue when I might book something, but just hearing how things have been going made me feel better about the potential of being on a set soon. There are so many things we have to worry about these days, and I don’t want to have to question anything if I’m lucky enough to book an acting job.
And he was asking me all about the condo and I was showing him photos of the different things I’ve picked out and some of the progress photos. I wish we could have gone over there so I could have shown him my new place, but I was finishing up so work so I couldn’t leave and I didn’t want to bother any workers that might be busy over there. Since I usually only go over after work, I haven’t seen the workers too often. But staying out of the way is probably best.
He was able to stay and hang out for over an hour before he had to head out to work on some more errands. But I know I’ll get another friend hang out with him soon since I’ll have to see him when he returns my shredder. And that time we will plan for it and maybe get to do something other than just catch up while hanging out in my living room. But if that’s what we do end up doing, I know I will be so happy about that since any in-person friend time is so special and precious to me.
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