Reconnecting

Two plus years of Covid-19. Many changes have taken place. More people are able to perform their jobs from home. There are virtual meeting, virtual birthday parties, virtual touring of homes for sale and more. I have had to learn to use the cell phone many abilities to stay connected with family.

I and others miss the face to face conversations of two years ago. People who we only meet at certain events to share information and experiences. The difficulty of knowing how friends are doing and what they are doing became hard to maintain. If I were to call those I know every week, I would get nothing done.

Tonight, my husband and I went to a birthday celebration of a dear friend, Hank, who is now 80 years old. We met seven years ago when I answered an ad to clean 18 horse stalls and other duties every weekend. While my mind says I am 25 years old, my body says it is older, much older than 25 years. The six months I worked in their horse barn, we became very good friends.

Soon after going to work for them, we were invited to join their group of friends who met every Friday evening for dinner at Casa Torres Mexican Restaurant. The people who gather were mostly retired, older than we were. Everyone had two things in common. They were friends of Hank and his wife. The other common bond was horses. Everyone who came either owned a horse or previously owned a horse. All had competed in some equestrian event in their lifetime. The conversation at these gatherings was all horse related. Those of us still competing would inform the group of upcoming events. We would attend lending our support for the rider and the horse. Our group would stay past eating dinner, sometimes being informed the restaurant was closing soon.

Then when Covid-19 arrived all gatherings ceased. Most horse events were shut down for a year. When they started having horse events, only those riding the horses were allowed to be present. The restaurant closed, then later opened for take-out only. Our group did not gather, we lost touch with each other.

Most of the group are older, not wanting to risk exposure to Covid-19 they restricted who came to visit and gatherings. Hank was put on dialysis a year before Covid-19.

Tonight, we all gathered with the exception of two, they are in the Cayman Islands, a group of 27. We reconnected and caught up on our life events the past two years. For the first time, horses were not the main conversation topic.

Everyone was asked to not bring a gift.

Tonight, I think we received the gift of renewed friendships, face to face.

Tonight was special.

Tonight we gathered.

Tonight we recconnected.

When we left, all the tables had been cleared, all the chairs except ours were on the tables, we stayed past closing. The owner was glad to have this faithful group of friends back and understood the need of us staying a little longer.

Do you have friendships that need to be reconnected after Covid-19?

Granny