Somewhere along the way I became someone who avoided people. There is not one single thing to point to—it was an accumulation: of the pandemic, of anxieties, of health limitations, of age, of settling into the known.
It’s not that I withdrew from society completely or became aloof and unreachable. I had my friends, but I stopped looking beyond the close friends I already had to strangers, to new experiences, or even to get to know acquaintances better. The familiar was manageable: regular quiz nights, longtime friends, movies and board games and camping and memes and long-held in-jokes.
It was good. Nothing to complain about. I wasn’t lonely, although I was often alone.
I stopped dating because even when it wasn’t painful it often sucked and sapped my energy, whereas I knew my friends were reliably enjoyable and invigorating company.
But lately I have come to realise that I have lost a lot of my spark.
While my health problems have something to do with it—it’s hard to have spark without energy—part of it is the way I have shrunk into a small comfortable world. Comfortable people. Familiar, easy situations. The online realm, easy to access and to control.
I realised when I started at a new workplace last year just how many of my funny or interesting stories were years old. How they came about due to situations I wouldn’t dream of putting myself in these days. And while I have no intention of getting back on the regular dating circuit, or going out dancing in a seedy bar until 4am anymore, I do want to find my spark again, and I think some of that has to come from pushing myself into some new and challenging experiences.
Because as much as I’m lucky to have good friends to spend time with, I don’t want to become stuck in the same patterns. I’m a storyteller. I need strangeness in my life to have stories to tell. I can—and do—research fascinating history and phenomena, but real people are weird and cool and interesting and surprising and that’s where it’s at.
I have been fortunate enough to buy a house recently—we move in a few weeks. If you read my other post about anxiously waiting to find out if I bought a house or not, the update is: I did! It was a real rollercoaster of ups and downs and complications but I persisted and I managed to pull it off. I bought a house! (And then wrote about how the New Zealand government is fucking up that opportunity for many other first home buyers, just like they’re fucking up so many other things.) I will no doubt have more to say about this in the future but for now I’m still somewhat in shock and processing (and feeling very lucky).
I mean… look at that face! He knows nothing of the significance of this place but he’s mighty happy about running round the garden!
Anyway… one of my goals for the new house is to really become a part of the local community. I’ve halfheartedly tried to get to know my neighbours before, but as a renter who has moved more than a dozen times in the last 15 years, it’s often not worth putting that time into a location-based community. That’s part of the allure of online worlds—you can be part of them from anywhere. You can also fine-tune your online spaces such that you—mainly—encounter only the things and people you want to see.
My first strategy for stepping outside my comfort zone is to get to know my neighbours and my new suburb. Luckily for me it’s a place with a strong community vibe, where I already know people. That makes it a bit easier to get started. But it doesn’t make it easy. It’s hard to talk to strangers, to show up to something new. And then to keep showing up, that’s even harder.
But I’m determined to rehabilitate my existence in this big world, to stop retreating into the small, the easy, to stop hiding in my warm house with my dog and my internet and the things I like around me. To go back out into the world properly. Not just to work or to the supermarket. But to really look around me and see who and what is out there.
To find my spark again I need to look outside myself.
Do you know your neighbours? Do you get involved in your local community or are you more likely to get involved with interest-based groups?
Congratulations on your home! I think with this new phase in life you'll find that you naturally start coming back into yourself - new friends, new routines, a new environment and a new sense of purpose. Life has its seasons, and sometimes we can sit in really isolating, closed off seasons for a while, but eventually the tide comes back in, Spring blossoms again. Enjoy this new season!
Great column - very relatable! And congratulations on your new house!