This still being summer, I am still trying to relax.

What I have discovered about summer belatedly (but better than never) is that no matter how much fun I have or how many wonderful things I do, it just doesn’t seem to count as “summer” unless I have put my toes into sand and water. An ocean beach, for choice, but in this case, we were invited recently to visit friends at their cabin on Lake George.

These were my husband’s friends from college — functionally like a fraternity, but with better beer and more work stories — and we used to travel to their gatherings at least once a year.

Plus, there was one important added feature — these are the folks who introduced me to my husband right there at Lake George, many years ago. So what we were doing, as my husband put it, was revisiting the scene of the crime.

This group hadn’t gathered in person for years — thanks to COVID and other scheduling problems — which made this the biggest group I’d been in, in person, for a very long time. Which gave pause for thought. Because even with every vaccine going, and every other precaution possible, we all know that somehow that pesky virus manages to sneak in; it’s just a question of who will end up with the unlucky short straw afterwards.

I had actually turned down almost every in-person event in the weeks leading up to this reunion, lest anything keep us from seeing these friends who we’ve missed very badly.

I found myself adapting a concept from comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s hit series from the 1990s, to describe my decision-making method.

In “Seinfeld” Episode #119, titled “The Sponge,” Jerry’s friend Elaine Benes (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) finds out, to her horror, that the contraceptive sponge — her preferred method of birth control — is being discontinued. She starts panic-buying every remaining box she can find and hoarding them in her apartment. But no matter how many boxes she’s acquired, the supply is finite, and so she soon has the following dilemma: Whenever she’s on a date with a possible beau, now she must ask herself: “Is he sponge-worthy?”

I have been flashing back to Elaine’s catch-phrase in the past few weeks, while asking myself about every invitation, “Is this event COVID-worthy?” If I catch COVID from going to this thing, will I be kicking myself? Or will I say, “At least I made it to that”?

Every little thing requires a search of one’s soul. Book club? Hated that book, not worth it. Candidates’ debate? Nope, sorry. Coffee with friends? Well, how many friends and is it indoors or out?

The difficulty really kicks in when you have a special event that raises the stakes—like a family wedding (mercifully, none for us right now) or something like this barbecue/reunion.

But if friends weren’t enough, Lake George was calling. So we went.

The food was — as always — homemade and amazing. But most important was just catching up with people — and giving them a hug. You can’t do that over Zoom; I know, I’ve tried.

There were three years’ worth of catching up to do.

To tell you the truth, there was probably nothing that hadn’t also happened to millions of other Americans. But these events had happened to the people whose lives were part of the fabric of ours. Catching up felt like mending holes you hadn’t even realized were there.

Besides — as always happens, when you really sit down and listen, you learn stuff. In my case, I learned that I am not the only one who was totally confused about Medicare, or who flipped a coin about what to do with my hair (leave it gray, or turn back the sands of time, at least as far as color is concerned?) I also learned that almost all of us have investigated hearing aids, which are uniformly disappointing.

Whatever ailments my husband and I thought we were suffering alone turned out to be completely typical. On the one hand, you lose the uniqueness of telling a good story, but that is more than made up for by the welcome company you find for your particular “misery.”

The steaks, corn, and salads restored the body; the stories exchanged by the campfire restored the soul.

As did putting our toes into the baby-gentle waves of Lake George, lapping on the sand.

So even if I do come down with a certain unmentionable virus — it was worth it. These days, you really can’t ask for more. Well, you can ask for more, but this is the best you’ll get.