01-01-26 Go to the Party

This message is mostly for future me but also whoever might be reading, I hope you take this advice too.

Go to the party. See your friends. Make new friends. Talk to eachother and touch eachother and have honest conversations as well as dumb ones and have fun.

I've treated my friends so terribly recently, because they moved away and I've been so lonely without them. It's hard to admit that you're lonely to yourself, let alone telling others. It's so vulnerable, telling someone that you're hurting on a primal level. So I pushed them away and isolated myself further, and I wouldn't have blamed them for resenting me for it.

But I forced myself to go out and see them last night for New Year's Eve. And I did find it really difficult, as they told me stories about their new lives in different cities, which were so much more interesting and normal than my own experience of isolation and depression. But oh my god it was the best night ever. I love them so much, and despite the fact that I treated them so bad, they treated me with so much kindness and love. I'm so grateful.

So here's the difficult thing: they are going to go back home soon, of course. And I'm realising how desperately I need this human interaction to survive. Last night felt like replenishing my life force, which was draining to a dangerously low level. I need to go out and meet new people and make new friends. I've never found it easy to do that, but I'm telling future me right now: it's worth it, please just go to the party.