Most people make me happy when they leave. In some cases, I have been quietly cheering for that outcome for a while. I can like someone, enjoy parts of our time together, and still believe whatever I had planned before they arrived deserves a chance to happen. It doesn’t have to be an impressive plan. Sitting at home watching TV qualifies, particularly if I have already spent a good part of the visit wondering when I might get back to it.

Then there are a few people who make me happy to be me. When they leave, I don’t feel the usual relief of having my time back. I feel sad. I recently said goodbye to one of those people, and I have been trying to sort out why their departure leaves such a hole when so many other departures leave me looking for the remote.

Outside of my family, there are probably fewer than five people who give me this feeling. Maybe ten if I include the people I see once a year and have very little interaction with in between. I realize those are small numbers for someone who has been meeting people for six decades. I would also like to make clear that I am not accepting the challenge to identify which family members aren’t granted the immediate waiver. I have enough trouble without providing supporting documentation.

The adult version of me far prefers staying home to being in a room full of people I have no particular interest in hanging out with. I can participate. I can ask questions and make conversation. Depending on when you meet me, you might even leave thinking I am an extrovert. That just means you left before the battery died. Judy may get a different version of me once we get home.

Some visits require a walk afterward. Others require a book that doesn’t ask much of me. I need a little time when nobody expects an answer before I can get on the computer and attempt to have a thought. It is like picking up an electronic device you haven’t used in months. You plug it in, push the button, and nothing happens. It needs a few minutes before it can even display how dead it is. I understand that device.

With the people I am missing, I don’t spend our time together watching my reserves disappear. I want to hear what they have to say. Something reminds us of a previous conversation, and we wander off into that. We can talk about something difficult without my feeling responsible for finding an answer, or laugh about something that probably wasn’t as funny as we remember it. I don’t feel the need to check our memories for accuracy. We are enjoying ourselves. Let it go.

I have been trying to figure out what makes those relationships different. Plenty of people can catch me up on what has happened since I last saw them. I can provide my report, too. We cover the kids, work, health, and whatever else belongs in the minutes of the meeting. With some people, that uses up most of what we have to say. We liked each other well enough at some point, but we may be asking a previous relationship to do a lot of the work.

With these few people, I want to know more. I want to hear what they are thinking about doing and how something turned out. When we revisit the past, it is because we still enjoy what we shared, or because something we went through together still matters. The conversation has somewhere to go. So does the relationship, even if neither of us knows when we will be in the same room again.

That part can surprise me. We may have gone years without seeing each other, with only occasional contact in between. I would think there should be a little awkwardness while we figure out who we are now. Instead, we start talking, and before long it feels much like the last time. We have plenty to catch up on, but I don’t feel as if I have to get acquainted with them again.

I am comfortable being myself around them. I don’t have to work quite so hard at being a good host or wonder if they are having enough fun. They seem happy to be here. I am happy they are here. For someone who can turn a social obligation into a fairly involved internal complaint, that is a wonderful feeling.

And then they leave.

I can be grateful for the visit and still want to have a small pity party afterward. I know they have their own lives and people who are waiting for them. I don’t believe they should abandon those responsibilities so I can have someone agreeable nearby. But I do wish they lived closer. It would be nice to have dinner without knowing we have only one or two evenings available. I would like to end a conversation because it is time to go home, with the expectation that we could pick it up again sometime soon.

There is a selfish part to this, too. These people make me feel good about who I am. They see me as someone worth making an effort to visit. They value my opinion and seem to remember more good about me than I remember about myself. I know what the mirror shows me, and I have had a front-row seat for plenty of things I wish I had done better. Somehow, their assessment comes out a little more generously than mine.

I don’t think they are completely unaware of my faults. If they have spent much time with me, I have probably demonstrated several without being asked. They still want to be here. That means something. It makes me want to be a little closer to the person they seem to believe I am.

They also remind me of a version of myself who enjoyed people more easily. He is still around. I hear from him when one of these people visits. He has things to say and wants to hear the answers. He can spend an evening talking without treating it as time deducted from something more important. I like having him back, although I would appreciate it if he showed up occasionally without requiring someone else to travel first.

My birthday is coming, which may be contributing to all this thinking. I am not especially excited about it. I have enough birthdays to establish that I know how they work, and I don’t need another demonstration. But getting older does make me wonder how much of my small circle is a matter of finding very few people I click with, and how much of it is my reluctance to give anyone time to get through the screening process.

I have learned that first impressions can be wrong. Unfortunately, I can learn something and still be slow to apply it. Once I have decided a person is going to be work, they have a fairly short window to redeem themselves. It is possible a few worthwhile people have been rejected by a committee consisting entirely of me wanting to go home.

I don’t expect to start enjoying every gathering. I would like to make a little more effort with the people whose company I already know I love. A call, a visit, or an invitation would be a reasonable place to start. If I can find time to miss them after they leave, I can probably find some time to help us get together again.

For now, I am grateful for the visit and a little sad that it is over. The house is quiet, and I have my time back. Usually, that is exactly what I want. This time, I would have been happy to let someone interfere with my plans a few days longer.