Socializing during the COVID-19 quarantine is fun

One of the things that I find encouraging even as we are in the COVID-19 quarantine at home mode, is that we’re reaching out socially more. We’re doing FaceTime and Zoom and contacting family and friends by text and telephone. In the last couple of weeks our dinner party group has been sending each other fun video clips and quotes that are keeping all our spirits up. And tomorrow night – the night our dinner party was to occur, we’re getting together on Zoom for happy hour. It will be great to see each and chat for an hour or so.

Here’s a fun one:

Socializing more has been on my list for some time. I wrote about it in one of my new memoir’s chapters. Here is what I wrote:

Another thing that is important to my mental well-being is to get more social. I need to make more lunch dates for me and dinner dates and for Bob and me. We need to get out more instead of plopping ourselves down in front of the television screen every night at six to watch two hours of news. And while we’re watching we drink – after all the news these days drives us to drink. What is also unhealthy is eating dinner at eight. Every night by the time we finish and do the dishes it’s time for bed – and on a full stomach, which is not very conducive for a good night’s sleep.

So, I’m going to reach out more. it’s not as though we don’t have any friends. We do. We just don’t see them often enough. Months go by with me just sitting at my desk writing, then going upstairs and lying down on the couch reading and napping, not even going to the grocery store. I need some of my Costco staples very badly, but for me even doing that shopping is a chore. I always put it off to the last minute.

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That’s a pretty grim tale, isn’t it? And now during the quarantine I’m being forced to do what I’ve been normally doing for years. Stay at home! Is it the writer in me? is it the shyness in me?

Well, right now, I like being back in touch with the people in my life. I’ve also volunteered to help out a candidate running for Congress. Tomorrow I’ll participate in phone banking – from home – and for the next few days I’ll be writing twenty-five postcards to people in her district to vote for Christy Smith in her May 12 runoff election. She’s running for the seat vacated by Katie Hill.

Now, come to think of it, I haven’t checked in on anybody yet today. It’s time to do that, right now.