Reuniting

I have never had such a socially packed month like this past October. It was amazing, expansive, bittersweet, mostly filled with reminiscing the fun times and making new memories.

The month started off by visiting my mom and brother in Vermont. Our plans were to be peeping the leaves, but autumn came late this year so my mom took me for a nice drive in the Green Mountain State. My cousin was able to meet us for breakfast one morning and realized we hadn’t seen each other in almost 7 years. I also managed to paint a portrait of my mom’s cat that passed away last year, something I’ve been doing for our family pets for many years.

Several days later we celebrated my beautiful niece for her Sweet Sixteenth birthday. While it’s hard to believe so much time has passed since the day she was born, it’s also been a blessing to witness her during so many stages of her life and exciting to see all that is ahead for her. It was a lovely time to catch up with my in-laws who had recently finished a 3 week road trip on the other side of the country.

The following evening I attended the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce New York’s 10 year Anniversary Gala. This was a fun filled night catching up with some great people I haven’t seen since I first joined the Chamber over 4 years ago. As an Ambassador for the Chamber, I’m usually working during our monthly events. This was a great night for the Ambassadors to play and be guests. Everyone kept saying, “this feels like a reunion” which was fitting because 4 days later I went to my 30 year high school reunion in the Hudson Valley.

The reunion was a blast and my face hurt from laughing so much. We all have different memories and it’s amazing what little details can bring back so much from events that took place so long ago. Many of us overstayed our welcome as the event ended at 11pm and we got to Erinn’s car at almost 2am! We didn’t want the night to end.

Ten days later, I was off to Soul Camp. As I mentioned last week, it was a beautiful way to celebrate the upcoming transformation of this lovely community of humans and to allow myself some respite from the overwhelming month of travel and reconnecting. My dear friend Tonia went to camp with me and we enjoyed a lovely road trip back to her place in Northern Cali. While Tonia and I have seen each other a few times since her baby was born, I was happy to witness this happy and healthy child who was born a bit too early 2.5 years ago.

After spending the night with her and her family, I was off to Nevada to visit my dad. We had a great time catching up and although our time together is brief, we usually cover quite a bit of territory.

It’s interesting that the stars aligned in such a way to have me reconnect with almost every family member and friend this past month and I am so grateful for it. While social media can fool us into thinking we are connecting, nothing beats spending time together in person.

Now that the countdown in on for the holidays, who are you looking forward to connecting with this season?