I want to preface this that everything I write here may leave you scratching your head thinking “this is not unusual at all”. But it is for me.

I, like most people belong to different groups of friends, that function as bubbles. I have my online friends, my church friends, my friends from drawing class, my friends with whom I do free hugs every month and so on. And by far and large, these groups do not interact with each other at all, and that’s partly on me. For whatever reason that I still need to work out with a therapist, I (sub)consciously keep these groups separate.

I think that is at least partly because I behave in slightly different ways, show different parts of myself to these different groups. Again, this mostly normal, and a ton of people do this, but I also know people who, by far and large don’t do this, and furthermore they have no trouble whatsoever with their bubbles meeting – for them, they are not even bubbles.

Therefore a couple of years ago I decided to turn my birthday party into a social experiment: invite everyone from everywhere into one big party, and just see what happens. It was legitimately scary for me because, in that setting, I have to be myself, my real self, I can’t do much pretending.

I am happy I did that because it was a huge success. I had about a dozen people from 3 or 4 different groups, and it was great to see them get to know each other.

This Saturday I’m having a party again, with an even more diverse group. It’s still scary, but now it’s exciting as well. I’m cooking some Mexican food, because as cliche as it is, food brings people together.

You’re all invited as long as you can make it to Hungary by 7 pm this Saturday. :)

Ten years ago I was working at a translation agency, being very enthusiastic about my job. I just started having a social life again after high school, finding real-life friends and community on Early Twitter, thanks to a Twitter client that auto-aggregated Hungarian users and connected them. (That’s a story worth telling in itself, another time)

A lot has happened since then. I worked there for a few more years, then I moved to Sweden for four years and then moved back to Hungary. Somewhere in the middle of that, I went freelance, which overall turned out to be a huge success. I started taking care of my mental health, getting diagnosed and re-diagnosed, finding a psychiatrist, did almost six years of therapy. I traveled a lot; I’ve been to most European countries by now as well as two trips to the US, both because of I got to be part of XOXO, but I’ve visited other parts of the States as well. I did a small pivot in my career that so far worked out well. I lost two out of my four grandparents. Built and ran a small link-sharing community. Grown a lot personally and professionally. Discovered running, did that for a few years. Found and lost friends and communities.

Right now I’m in a pretty great place. I have well-paying clients and hopefully picking up more freelance work soon. I’m part of a great church, one that I was looking for all my life. I have good friends, some old, some new. I’ve started drawing a few months ago, and I enjoy it immensely. Yesterday, after years of procrastination, I finally found myself a personal trainer and will begin working with her next week. Although my sister is moving out of our place, a good friend is taking her place in the room next to mine. I’m having a birthday party on Saturday where I’ll cook for my friends. I feel at home where I am.

Here’s to an even better 40.