Connecting Outward

What happens after (re)connection?

Since the reunion of school friends and the Frenaissance, I’ve noticed some downstream impacts that come from this refreshing marination in reconnection.

(And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, refer back to my last two Substack posts. This is the third post in a series about the epidemic of loneliness and how taking time to re/connect with friendships is a radical act.)

This time of reconnection has encouraged me to keep going with this momentum and expand the circle outward. I’ve found that I’m feeling a lot more supported in tough moments I’m going through, buoyed by the comradery that is more embedded into my everyday life.

And that just feeds into me wanting to connect even more.

Making Connection Contagious

I’ve been talking with this friend group even more lately. Remember 3-way calling? We actually used it to all spontaneously jump on a call together to rally immediate emotional support for one of our friends last week.

I’ve gotten to talk to each person 1:1 more too. Sometimes multiple times in a week. It’s lent itself to even more safety to be vulnerable about big things. A few weeks ago, I had a hard week and it turned into a spontaneous 1:1 where we had long-distance drinks together and then late-night dinner over the phone. It’s all been a real bright spot in my days.

We were also able to meet in person over the holidays:

Using the Frenaissance as a jumping off point, my husband and I also made more time and intentional efforts to see more of our friends during our trip back home over the winter break.

Here we are at a small birthday party we threw for our 2-year old with some of our hometown friends (and family) we hadn’t seen in a long time.

In general, plenty of games were played. Dancing and karaoke. Bubbles and sports game simulators. I enjoyed that it was kids and adults of all ages having fun together.

And even a few 1:1 hangouts were had.

And while these all happened while I was on vacation (and most others were on vacation too), I like to think that my openness to play and connection is creating a gravitational pull that brings me/my family to mind for other people when they want to engage in play.

For instance, when we got home from our trip, our family was invited to do the Great Big Game Show as a double birthday celebration in January. A joint family affair where we even got our own game show host!

Maybe this is only the beginning.

Joy Train

So how do I keep this going?

I did borrow this idea of a friendship joy train from Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships where I put together a list of more activities that feel novel and fun that I’d like to do. s

Originally, I put together the list for my birthday which was back in October. But then I thought… why do I need my birthday as an excuse to get people together?

The idea would be that I’d send these ideas out to a large list of folks I already love and/or would like to know better. They could “sign up” if they were also interested in any of the activities.

Here are some of the listed activities:

1. Presentation Party (also called a “Powerpoint Party”): At first I thought this sounded sooooo nerdy. And maybe it is! But this is where folks get-together to give their own 5-minute presentation on a cheeky, recreational subject of their choice with a Q&A afterward. Some fun examples could be topics like “My Dating History”, “Conspiracy Theories I Believe Are True”, and “The 5 Cutest Dog Breeds, IMO.”

2. Bioluminescence: A few times every summer the phytoplankton in Seattle emit light underwater that gives off a blue sparkling glow. It seriously looks like magic in photos. I’m dying to see it. I have to go at night though so it takes some advanced planning.
   

3. Kamayan: This is a Filipino feast where you cover your table in banana leaves and partake in a meal with guests using only your hands. “Kamay” literally means hands and it’s an intimate way to enjoy food in community in a way Filipinos did before they were colonized.
   
   I thought about throwing one to celebrate my graduation but it was too much to plan with everything else going on that summer. I’d still really like to do one though and bring friends into my world.
   

4. Silent Reading Retreat: This is maybe like silent reading party on steroids but I’d love to go away for a weekend with a few good books I’ve been meaning to read and a few friends. We’d have some sort of agreed arrangement where we eat meals together but then spend a large amount of our time on a cozy couch, comfy bed, or outdoors in the sunshine just reading.
   

5. Virtual Games: I have quite a few long-distance friends. I’d love to organize a few rounds of games with them like Among Us, Acron, or Drawful. I already got the friends to do it for my birthday. (I censored one of the answers to keep it PG.)
   

   

   Playing Drawful online

6. Indoor Sky-diving: I actually might save this one to do with my family because my teenagers agreed they’d do it with me. You literally jump into a vertical wind tunnel that is shooting air upward. My husband and I tried to go skydiving with a group of friends in our younger days but it was a no-go situation with his heart condition. So this is like a way to go sky-diving without the terrifying heights or higher chance of dying.

I’ve been compiling ideas for months hoping to have a huge spectrum of adventures—free or paid, outdoor or indoor, physical or stationary, big groups or small groups or 1:1, etc. I haven’t sent out the list yet though because I want it to be all-inclusive of absolutely anyone I’d love to invite more into my world. I might time launching it with my half-birthday.

Maybe I’ll also keep checking for fun events that pop up near me. Mahjong Mondays, for example, is an intergenerational activity that could be a fun flow to experience.

I might still cycle between periods of more fun and zero fun. But I hope by paying attention to how it feels to reintegrate play into my life creates archs of merrymaking that are much longer and non-play periods that are much shorter.

With all the major sociopolitical events, part of me has forgotten how much I miss light-heartedness and play. Often I feel like much of my life is work hard and then work harder. But this entire experiment has been a much-needed reminder that there is still room for play.

And it’s not all just play.

We can talk about the hard things too. But having a nice back-and-forth dynamic between the hard and the soft somehow makes it all that much more bearable.