friendship, effort, and perspective in Each Day

I wish I’d written this earlier, but it’s something that has been rattling around my brain since my last therapy session. We talked about how I lost myself during the pandemic, how I lost my social life, how I lost friends, and worse, faith in people - my people - and how that broke me down into something I could not recognise.
I wrote about this a fair bit during the pandemic, and I had no clear answer or direction of how to get back to myself.

Then Tina asked, (paraphrased) why do you need to get back to yourself? What about that version of yourself was better than this version of yourself?

The thing is, I don’t feel this version of me is inferior (or superior, for that matter). But I liked being a social butterfly. I liked meeting people, and having lighthearted conversations and being part of different communities. I lost all of that to the pandemic.
But this perspective overlooks the state of my marriage. By 2020 M and I were already connecting in a deeper way than we ever had, but I still didn’t really consider him as part of my social life. We would make fun of people who called their partners their “best friend” (granted, I don’t even like calling my favourite people my “best friend” because it’s so singular and I have far too many people who are far too integral to specific facets of my life, it feels disrespectful), because it felt disingenuous. And I’m certainly not saying that has changed, M has been elevated to such a lofty position in my life that even my “wives” don’t come close to him (which feels unkind to say, even if it’s true).
I want to spend all of my time with M. Leaving the house to see other people makes me feel like I’m missing out on him. I spoke about how M knows that I need social contact and will push me out the door if I whine about wanting to stay home (unless it’s for a legit reason, he’ll support me either way).
Sometimes it’s inertia, going out is such an effort these days, and it never used to be. I find myself becoming “quiet” in situations where I used to have no problem finding something to say. That is a tension in me that I don’t like and don’t want to feel. It reinforces the feeling of being broken or somehow less whole than my former self. There is still something to uncover here, trauma, rejection sensitivity, autism…
(I did have a bit of a revelation recently that one of my major internal experiences really reinforces my belief that there is autism in my being, as well as ADHD, but the former has erased the specifics of this for the time being. I hope to recall and write about it when I get it back.)

All this to say, I’ve found a bit of peace. My life now isn’t worse than my life then. My life then wasn’t better than my life now. It’s just a different phase, different priorities. Instead of mourning the loss of that past version of myself, I can honour it by bringing the best parts of it into the present.
It feels good to have put that fabricated conflict to rest.