I finally had the opportunity to host people at my new apartment. One of my friends had put together a one-shot game of Pathfinder Second Edition, in hopes of giving me a way to experience the game with people who are more fun to play with than the group I’d first started with (who now haven’t met in almost six weeks, thanks to two sequential skips in our every-other-week schedule). Since we first discussed this, I wound up joining an every-other-week game this friend runs, but everyone was excited for the one-shot, so we proceeded with it anyway. I wasn’t going to suggest we cancel, after all, since I was excited to finally have people over for an event. I was planning to go all out, after all, with frozen pizzas, plenty of snacks, and a pitcher of my special, super-sour lemonade (the point of it being that you need to let it sit in your glass and melt the ice a bit to dilute it, which also means it is a great lemonade to drink slowly). I may have been a little behind schedule the day of the session, but it was still really fun to have people over since it has been so long since I’ve gotten a chance to play host for something like this.

I’ve always enjoyed having people over, and not just because I’d rather have people come to me than to push myself to go to people. That’s definitely a part of it, but it’s a part I can easily overrule when I have the occasion to do so. Plus, it’s not like there isn’t effort in playing host. There’s probably more effort in hosting than there is in going to visit people, since I absolutely refuse to let people visit my apartment if its messy. I might not get everything into perfect, sparkling condition before I have people over, but I’m definitely going to at least clean more than I usually do on an average day So, no, it’s not a question of effort. I just like having people over because it livens up my space. It makes the place I’m living feel like a home. It makes my apartment feel less empty when I’ve had people over, even after they’ve left. While the pandemic has definitely sharpened the feelings involved, thanks to my isolation and the way my life has changed in the last three years, this isn’t new for me. This is something I’ve felt for years, so far back that I’m not entirely sure of the origin.

Maybe it’s because I grew up as a lonely kid, with parents who weren’t as willing to host other people’s kids (or maybe because other kids’ parents weren’t as willing to let their kids stay over at my parents’ house once they met my older brother) and few friends in the area to invite over regardless. Even in high school, I spent most of my time at my friends’ houses rather my parents’ house. Sure, a large chunk of that is easily explained away by the situations of my teenaged years. I was the only one who had access to a car that no one else used, to the degree that having a car was one of my “superpowers” in the fictional world we created together (I wrote stories but pretty much everyone else drew comics). I also didn’t want to be around my parents’ house much while my brother was there during my first two years of high school and then just didn’t want to spend much time in the house after that (I was always more comfortable elsewhere). I was also the furthest away from everyone while all the other members of our group lived within a few miles of each other. My parents’ house was inconvenient for everyone but me.

It wasn’t until college that I finally started hosting things. My first two years, I was mostly concerned with creating and protecting my own space (I had issues sleeping in front of other people, which have lasted to this day even if they are less severe than they used to be) rather than exploring what other people could bring to it. My junior year, I was finally in a dorm that had individual bedrooms and shared living spaces, which meant I could host people and still have a space of my own to retreat to. This was also the first time that the Dungeons and Dragons game I’d been running for years met in someone’s apartment rather than in one of the public spaces of the dorm I lived in. I finally got to experience how nice it was to have people inhabit a space I’d created and curated, that I could control to fit the needs and comfort of people I cared about. It was intoxicating, to provide something to people that didn’t come with obligations, attachments, or baggage. To have people enjoy an environment I’d cultivated and to take nothing from me that I was not already spending on myself, anyway. After all, it was my environment. I lived there. Anything I did for the comfort of other people was comfort I could also enjoy.

This was the first time I ever put in extra effort for something that would benefit me. Over the years since then, through various apartments and roommate situations, creating a comfortable space for myself and the people I care about has remained the easier way for me to take care of myself. To prioritize my own needs and wants as a valid consideration. To see caring for myself as being worthy of my time and effort. This is why I usually wind up cleaning or organizing things when I’m stressed out. I am reminding myself that I’m worth this effort and putting in the work required to give myself something nice that isn’t as ephemeral as a nice meal or as temporary as a new book. I still wake up some mornings, see my room bathed in light reflected off the pale blue and lavendar walls, and find myself appreciating the time and care I (and my friends) put into making this space comfortable.

Hosting people over the weekend was a reminder of why I care about this stuff. Sure, I don’t need the excuse of doing something for other people in order to do something for myself any more, but it still feels nice to do something for myself and know that other people will benefit from it. I still, after all, enjoy taking care of other people. The reasons behind it might have changed, as has how much I’m willing to put myself out to do it, but I still care about other people and want to make them comfortable. I still want to bring people into my spaces, with their warmth and laughter and joy, so I can make the place I live feel more like a home than I can on my own. After all, the way things went on Saturday were only possible in my apartment. They couldn’t have happened anywhere else. Similar things, things that are just as good, could happen elsewhere and probably will in the coming months, but the exact events of Saturday could have only happened in my current apartment. Video games, movies, and books are great, but they can happen pretty much anwhere. Having people over can only happen in one place, though, and that means a lot to me.