Lovely morning walking with friends. Dogs playing nicely and a bonus 11-week-old German Shepherd puppy with fluff you wouldn’t believe.

I did come away with a slight nagging thought though. I felt like I was “trying”. What I mean is that I could reflect upon conversations that were too speedy or comments that were too plentiful or stories that were too involved and in each case, I wonder if I was making too much of an effort to be the life and soul.

Now I don’t know that anyone else there would have picked up on it, at least consciously, but I do sometimes wonder if times like this make me seem like less of a natural person to chill with.

It won’t benefit me to overthink this, but it couldn’t hurt to dial it back a bit going forward, if nothing else, to assuage any worries I might have.