I go through dark periods where all I can do is nothing. Where I stare at my computer or the room around me and feel no impulse, no spark, no drive while also feeling anxious and like I ought to be doing something.
Over the past two years, the amount of time I have spent alone has increased greatly, and so has this feeling of uninspired anxiousness. There are many days when this is not a thing, and I recently started noticing when the better days happen. They tend to happen after I have ventured out of the house, and especially a day or two after I have interacted with a stranger and had a totally random conversation about something.
One of my favorite sad-day activities is to go to the ACE hardware and just wander around, thinking about repair, imagining what I would do with all those tools. I have gone there twice this week... my heart is a little broken at the moment.
on Tuesday morning when I went, I talked with he store owner for a good 10 minutes after my purchase was complete, and he told me all about the business model of ACE hardware. I was fascinated. It is basically a co-op that is owned by the people who own the individual stores. I loved hearing about it form him and for the rest of the day, I felt more interested in life than I had before our conversation.
What I am learning is that I need interactions with strangers. I need to be able to look new people in the eye and ask them about what they do, how they live, what they care about... I need to be able to feel the energy of stranger and learn new things about life. In the pandemic, there was a coming together of community, and a loss of encounters with new people.
I am looking forward to all of the lovely interactions with strangers that are to come. It really gives me life.