let's meetup

One of the pieces of advice everyone gives a grieving widow is that you need to get out and meet people.

I'm not really a "meet new people" kind of person. I'm pretty shy and a complete introvert so the idea of making small talk with strangers is probably right up there with jumping into a volcano on my list of things I really never want to do.

For as long as I was married I really didn't have to meet new people. I had a best friend right there with me. We did everything together. We traveled, we went out to eat, we went to movies, we went shopping, we were always doing something and it was always together.

Fast forward to now and everything has changed. If I want to do something I either have to ask my friends if they want to join or I have to do it by myself. 

I can do things by myself, I have done things by myself but I don't want to live my life that way, doing everything by myself.

So I guess I have to do the thing I dread - I have to meet new people.

My sister in law told me about this thing called Meetup. Not that she's ever done it, the big chicken. But it's a free thing where people start groups for different interests and they schedule events and you can sign up and meet a bunch of people.

Sounds fun, right?

Well no, to me it sounds like torture. But I didn't really have a choice.

So last night I went to my first Meetup event. It's a group that meets at various Disney parks and hotels to walk around. It's actually a walking group in most cases but last night the event was centered around a concert at Epcot. That seemed like a safe first event to attend.

I got there a little early so I decided to find the Leave a Legacy picture that Mr. T and I had taken back in 2000. It was a promotion Epcot was having back then, they etched your picture on this metal tile and then all the pictures were permanently displayed on marble stones at the entrance to the park. I hadn't seen the tile in years (Mr. T and I only looked for it once) and I had no idea where it was - there are thousands of these little tiles. Luckily Epcot has a computer to help you find your tile. I knew we'd done it in 2000 but had no idea of the date but the helpful cast member eventually found it for me.

That's the original picture that we had taken when we purchased our tile. I had never seen it in color before. It was thrilling to see this picture (taken on May 26, 2000) but it was also hard.

The nice cast member gave me directions to find the tile and with just a couple of stumbles I eventually found it.

There we are for all time and eternity. I want to try tracing it one day.

Eventually they are going to move all the marble bases to another location in the park but they will be at the entrance for a few more years. Now that I know where we are, I'll go visit every time I'm at the park.

So, once that was done it was time to meet up with the group. Of course, me being me, I considered just walking on and seeing the concert solo but I ruled that out, knew that I needed to take this first step so I walked up to the 2 ladies that were waiting and introduced myself. They were very nice, as were the other 5 people that eventually joined us. We walked to the concert venue, waited in a very long line and finally found really good seats.

Now I'm not a huge Rick Springfield fan, in fact I only know a couple of his songs, but I enjoyed the concert a great deal. He sang a song he'd written after his mother passed away. It clearly made him emotional and boy, it made me emotional too but I kept it together, didn't want to cry in front of my new stranger/friends.

I especially enjoyed when he came down from the stage and sang all around the audience. We had great seats for that moment.

It was a short concert so after 30 minutes he finished up and we were free to go. We took a group photo and then some decided to stay for a second show and others broke off to do other things or go home. I was one of the going home types. One other woman was walking my way so we went together. She kept me entertained the whole way by telling me about how she lost her husband 9 years ago and how hard it's been and how difficult it is out in the dating world. Apparently, much like teenage boys, men are only after one thing and, unlike the teenage boys of my past, they are pretty aggressive about getting it. Oh so much to look forward to.

I got home and although I did enjoy the concert, the whole experience made me sad. I posted about it on Facebook and everybody was posting words of encouragement, saying it looked like fun, etc. and that made me even sadder because nobody seems to get that it was hard to make myself go and even harder to know that I HAD to go. None of them have to find groups of strangers to hang out with. None of them need to "make new friends." None of them need to survive or move on with their lives. 

Well I'd better stop with that line of thought because it's just making me angry and bitter and that's not me. That's not who I have always been. Of course who I've always been always had a partner right beside her for all the fun adventures.

And so, even though I kind of hate it, I'll be back out at another concert tomorrow, meeting new people. Because that's who I am now.