I’ve gotten five phone numbers from 30-something women in the last month. That’s probably more than I’ve gotten from men in my entire life (don’t feel bad for me, two of those have been from my very handsome husband). I’ve gotten numbers from women at the park, outside of dance class, and even at Trader Joe’s. And even more impressive I think, is the fact that I’ve actually used all of those numbers. Despite the fact that we are still one foot into a pandemic, and my newborn is allowing me no more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep at night, I am suddenly more social (and more excited about being social) than I’ve been in a very long time.

I’ve never considered myself an extrovert. In college, I used to sneak out of parties a little early so that I could protect a moment of alone time before bed. For the majority of my adulthood, I was very much the same, and took up long distance running for both the solitude it provided, and it’s usefulness as an excuse for skipping out on many an “after-hours” event. When I became a parent, I was more than a little bit grateful that the notoriety of my three young children’s sleep habits (or lack thereof) essentially eradicated my need to come up with excuses for why I needed to be home, and in bed, by 9pm.

It’s not that I don’t like people. I have a few close friends who are fiercely important to me, and I have always enjoyed getting together with my broader circles in small, predictable settings, but I was never one to enjoy making small talk in a room, or playground, full of loose acquaintances.

And then, Covid hit, and I spent 15 months at home with my children.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I took a leave of absence from my teaching job. As a result, I went from talking to approximately 150 people every single day, to two. And one of those people couldn’t even talk back. I quickly discovered that, as much as I loved my then three-year-old and one-year-old, they were far from suitable conversationalists. Many an afternoon, after the 10,000th request for a snack, or the 300th read-through of 5 Minute Frozen Stories, or the 20th round of singing Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, I would stare out the window and think to myself, “I would LOVE to talk to another adult right now.” And, it wasn’t long before my so-called “introverted” self realized just how much I hated being alone.

As the weeks wore on, It struck me just how much I missed connecting–not only with family and friends, but with the hundreds of other people I used to orbit around every day. I missed laughing with teenagers over the inane memes they would show me on their phones before class. I missed catching someone’s smile across the room at a staff meeting, and returning it with a silent snicker, or a good, old-fashioned eye roll. I missed the checkout woman at the grocery store telling that she, too, had bought her son the same, ultra tame, Volvo Hot Wheels car that my son was clutching in the front of the shopping cart, and that he still played with it years later. And I missed meeting other moms–at the playground, the coffee shop, heck, even the doctor’s office–and having a whole world of other people to talk to about how beautiful, difficult, exhausting and inspiring my day had been.

Finally, in April of this year, I received my second Covid vaccine. Suddenly, I was flush with antibodies, no longer pregnant, and ready to open the flood gates.

Whereas old me would have loved nothing more than to spend every evening at home on the couch, post-pandemic me has something on the schedule every dang day. Every morning, I find myself chomping at the bit to do things, see people, and make plans. My one-time aversion to small talk is no where to be found, and I am suddenly thrilled by the idea of chatting with absolutely anyone who will have me. And while a part of me wonders if my friends and neighbors will be put off by my newfound exuberance, I have quickly come to notice that I’m far from the only newly minted chatty Kathy in town.

At the park, the parents who have spent a year on separate corners of the sandbox are suddenly clumped together again, chatting about preschool and the Trader Joe’s snack aisle, and hypothesizing as to why toddlers can’t seem to keep their tongues out of the sand. Moms I had passed a million times on the trail at the nature center have started stopping to say hi, or staying to finish out the walk with us. I have started talking with neighbors I had never met about soccer, and T-ball, and the insane things we bought, or built to entertain our kids during the pandemic. Our kids have overheard us, and invited themselves to a jump session in Charlie’s bounce house, and a playdate at Louis’s dad’s shoddily-built treehouse. We’re spending so much more time laughing, agreeing, exchanging numbers, and grabbing lunch together on the way home from the beach that I feel like a 12-year-old at sleep away camp–out of the house, newly self-assured, and ready to capitalize on my first taste of freedom.

In the “before time,” I had so many opportunities to connect, that I stopped seeing the value, and essentialness, of connection. I had a million opportunities to make new friends, and often squandered them, or willingly let them move away from me, for no reason other than the fact that I assumed another chance would eventually come my way. I threw around labels like introvert and extrovert with a definitiveness they didn’t deserve, and diagnosed myself as the former without taking a moment to consider the ways in which being social were fundamental to my daily existence–both at home, and at work.

So, for the first time in my life, I’m calling myself an extrovert. Not due to any kind of personal renaissance, or reimagining of the the term itself, but more because I’ve started to realize that all of us, in our own ways, are extroverts. As much as many of us might enjoy a quiet night with a book, what we need is community, companionship, and an openness to letting others in. And while I know that this initial excitement will eventually fade, and that our memories of this year at home will become a little softer around the edges, I hope that we never forget how incredibly valuable life, and the people, outside of our own four walls really is.