I can’t wait to go ice skating this year.

Every year, when winter rolls around, the child in me looks forward to ice-skating and playing hockey.

That’s been my outlook since I first skated when I was 6 or 7, and my excitement towards the activity hasn’t changed.

That’s all – that’s the post.

Hopefully this much lighter-hearted post is more appealing to my fellow readers. In response to the intensity of my last post, I wanted to make something clear:

I’m doing okay.

I have my ups, and my downs, as do most others.

The pandemic has highlighted an interesting personal coping mechanism, where normally during my downs I inadvertently feed off my second-handed social interactions.

I’m not a very social person, but even small interactions like scanning my badge at the gym and being seen by the customer service rep, or sharing the road with other drivers, are ways to feel acknowledged – interactions that pull me out from living inside my head.

Humans are built off of social interaction. You and I are here because, bluntly, two people engaged socially. Our life’s origin starts with social interaction. We’re meant to be social, so its extremely easy to understand why mental difficulties arise when we don’t engage frequently in these ways.

In some sense, the pandemic has stripped some of my ability to feel noticed, and I didn’t realize how I relied on this phenomenon to cope with some of my downs. The pandemic has amplified this dependence.

I’d like to thank you for reaching out and checking up on me, I sincerely appreciate it. The word sincerely couldn’t be more important. I sincerely do.

I feel inclined to keep my post public because I want to document some of my time in the “down” so that readers going through similar experiences can relate to my experience. My goal really is to put into words what others might be feeling. To phrase what’s going on in my head, as its probable someone else shares similar ideas.