The fissure those few of years of isolation created have had far-reaching consequences.
The pandemic accelerated the gap, but it was already widening.
At fifty-three many long-time friends I felt would be with me for the rest of my days have become distant now.
I feel much the same. I have friends who I would consider family - and now, I barely recognise them.
I miss the richness this brought to life.
I was considering trying to start some kind of group locally. Start with friends and then expand out, just to see if people are interested in building a community again.
I guess I hadn't noticed it much before the pandemic, for my inner circle anyway. We're all mostly in our fifties so we're probably a bit older than most. Same here, most of the friends who've drifted I consider family, one in particular like a brother. Over the last couple of years I found myself always being the one to reach out. As an experiment I decided to not do that to see how long it would take him to check-in with me. So far it's been nearly a month without even a call or a text. Before 2020 we'd meet at least once a week. It's very sad but something I've decided I must make peace with. Starting a group is an excellent idea! In fact, it would be a good initiative here on Hive to encourage others to start local groups of their own.