Via Zoom, I meet with other groups of writers on a regular basis. One of these groups originally formed during Covid to aid and inspire each other to keep writing. I joined as a late-comer and still feel like the newbie even though it’s been over a year. When one of these writers said she was coming to Toronto, I hedged (only for a minute) on whether or not to meet her in person.

Brief chit-chats on zoom can give you an idea of who a person is, but it’s another thing to make plans to get to Toronto, stay overnight with a relative, print a parking pass, and so on. For her part, she was giving up a day of her holiday–there was risk on both sides. We are both writers and bloggers… What if we had nothing to say to each other after we exhausted that topic?

I am not shy, but I used to be. Painfully so. Every so often that inner shyness tries to take over and I wrestle it to the ground to let it know who’s boss. My hesitation over meeting this lovely, warm, intelligent woman brought about one such (decidedly brief) tussle.

This long introduction is to confirm for you what a waste of mind space worry is. She and I had a fabulous time. We enjoyed a Toronto-priced lunch, rocked the CN Tower, and then savoured outrageously expensive cocktails at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. She is a beautiful writer, I highly recommend; Click here for the link to her blog, sharing her Swiftie/Toronto experience.

The next weekend, I received a text from someone I’d been friends with in high school. He has been a faithful reader of this blog for years and was in the area; “Did I want to meet for a coffee?” I hedged again, but only for a moment. He had to drive out of his way through snow squalls. I had to drive five minutes.

Between this blog and Facebook he and I had a fairly good idea of how life had treated each other. I can’t say I was worried there would be long awkward silences, but it crossed my mind. What I remembered from our high school days is that our conversations always seemed so personal. And there we were, 50 plus years later, in a coffee shop, having a personal conversation.

Last spring I reached out to a woman who has been a self-described fan of this blog going back to the days of the comic series Contentment is for Cows. Over the years we exchanged many emails getting to know each other. After she moved to the same city as one of my sisters it was time to meet her face-to-face. Again, there was that little voice whispering resistance, but… oh, what a positive experience.

Connect. In person. It’s so worth it.

Keep your joy.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger, unless it’s a holiday weekend. Or summertime. Facebook or sign up for delivery to your email.