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By Ada Wood, CNN

CNN I've been wanting to take my friend to my favorite tea shop for what seems like forever. Ever since we had to switch from having our tea in person to sipping over video calls during the pandemic, I've been looking forward to having a reunion at "Dr. Bombay's Underwater Tea Party."

It has been a tough year for both of us. I'm trying to stay optimistic that we can find a way to celebrate and that the reunion isn't just a solemn reminder of all the in-person tea outings we've missed out on.

I'm hoping she likes the place, since she's never been before. While she loves fruity herbal teas and I'm more a fan of black teas, I know we'll each be able to find something we like within the book-lined walls.

If we want to sit outdoors, I know there is a space at the back of the shop, but there isn't room for many people if we are social distancing. I've always ordered one pot of tea for two people and shared -- is sharing even an option anymore?

Although we'll both be fully vaccinated by the time we get together, I haven't felt free to enjoy myself in public without the fear of contributing to the spread of the virus since the pandemic began. I can't begin to imagine what it will feel like -- simply to get tea with an old friend.

I know I'm not the only one anxious about re-entering the world once I'm fully vaccinated. That's why I called Jane Webber, an assistant professor of counselor education and doctoral program coordinator at Kean University in New Jersey. While it may be challenging, Webber said there are ways you can prepare yourself as you reemerge into the world as a social being.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

CNN: Is it normal to be nervous about socializing right now?

Jane Webber: Yes, it's normal, because what we've just gone through is a completely abnormal situation. Pandemics are like something from another world, and it's not of any value to us to worry about whether it's normal. We just have to say, "Today is today and tomorrow is another day."

When we going through such an abnormal experience for so long, we forget what we know naturally as human beings -- that people do reach out, help each other and say hello.

Like any traumatic event, which we've been living every day, it's scary to step out and say, "Am I safe? Do I want to do this? Do I have the courage to go back to socializing?"

CNN: Where should we go for our first outings?

Webber: The first thing I thought is: Where would I like to go? And, for me, there is a wonderful restaurant just a few blocks from me that sells raw oysters. I am comfortable there. I know the staff. I know the location. I know where the exit is. I know where the ladies' room is. And boy, do I love oysters. I'd go with safety and comfort, because that tells me it's OK.

For someone else, they can dive into new experiences, but it's probably not the time for me to do that.

CNN: Who are the best people to reach out to?

Webber: Reconnect with the people you know first -- because you already have that sense of friendship. We might have to say: "Do I really want to do a blind date? Do I really want to join a new club? Or shall I start safely?" And sometimes, safety helps us build our confidence for going a step further.

Isolation is hard. What happens if you don't have someone you can meet up with? Try finding a small support group, like people who all want to speak Italian. It may even be less anxiety inducing for you to meet a new group of people with a common interest.

Seeing other people, even if you're technically alone, is still worthwhile. I have gone for the special on the raw oysters and sat alone, even though it took a great deal of courage to get out there by myself.

CNN: What do we do if we experience anxiety during a conversation?

Webber: It's that sudden stillness where you don't know what to do and suddenly: "Oh my God, what am I doing here? This is terrible."

Take a very quiet, deep breath in saying, "bring the calm in" and a deep breath out saying, "send my anxiety out." And just thinking of that -- not saying it out loud, because it definitely would be very strange -- brings your anxiety down.

My other secret is "tapping." I just tap my feet, one at a time, and my anxiety drops completely.

CNN: What topics are our safest bets to discuss?

Webber: I probably would avoid anything to do with the pandemic, except "I hope it's almost over." Break out into the things you used to talk about, and think of a few things to discuss before you get there, too.

For many of us, we may not have kept up with this person, or we haven't seen them for a long time. We may wonder, what did they do during the time that passed? How have they changed?

Now it might take some thinking from a year or so ago, but you will probably remember something you really enjoyed about them or a positive memory you shared with them.

CNN: What if a topic comes up that you aren't ready to talk about?

Webber: Especially after surviving a whole year of really difficult things, I'd just say, "Let's not do that today. Let's talk about something else." But make sure you have something else ready to talk about. And if they continue, maybe this just isn't the person you should be with right now.

CNN: Why should we go out into the world again?

Webber: Because we want to, because we are human beings who thrive only with social connections, and because our life is full and fresh when we're with other people. Isolation was not in any way fun; we survived it, but we still don't feel human. It's just scary to take that first step.

I'm grateful for the people in my life, even if we haven't reconnected in so long and I'm a little embarrassed about how that's going to go. When I finally see them, I'm going to take a breath; I'm going to smile and I'm going say "Glad to see you again."

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How to socialize for the first time again after a year of isolation - WRAL.com

President Bill Clintons strategy of triangulation was essentially an effort to lift pieces of Reaganism for Democratic gains. The era of big government is over, he famously declared in his 1996 State of the Union address.

Deeply aware of the role Mr. Reagan played in shifting American views on spending, President Barack Obama took office in 2009 believing that his administration could help end the countrys adherence to conservative economic policy.

Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not, Mr. Obama said during his 2008 campaign. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasnt much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.

Yet Mr. Obama also struggled to escape that path, eventually moderating his agenda and spending months making fruitless efforts to get bipartisan support for his ideas. Even the health care law that would come to be named after him was a compromise between liberals, who wanted a single-payer system, and moderates, who feared the size of such a huge new program.

Theres some evidence that Mr. Biden may be able to accomplish what Mr. Obama could not. Since the start of the pandemic, polling has found Americans expressing more positive sentiments about their government over all. Nearly two-thirds of Americans supported Mr. Bidens relief bill, with similar numbers backing his infrastructure plans. The most recent NBC News polling found that 55 percent of Americans said government should do more, compared with 47 percent who said the same a dozen years ago.

Unlike in 2009, when the government response to the Great Recession helped ignite the Tea Party movement, theres been no backlash so far to the big spending in Washington. After Congress passed the $1.9 trillion relief bill, many Republican voters told me that they were supportive of the legislation. Republicans in Washington have struggled to find a cohesive line of attack against the policy. And some who voted against the bill now highlight its benefits, an implicit acknowledgment of public support.

Former President Donald Trump, too, helped hasten the death of limited government, undercutting Republican credibility for making the case against federal spending. He drove the national debt to the highest level since World War II, pushing through a $2 trillion tax cut that did little for middle-class families.

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Joe Biden, the Reverse Ronald Reagan - The New York Times

Progressives have a message for President Joe Biden, and Wednesday night they delivered it in a formal response to his first address to Congress.

"We've always said that the election of Joe Biden is the door but not the destination," said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party.

The Working Families Party, a prominent left-leaning group, tapped Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-New York, to deliver its response.

The move is unusual because Bowman is a member of the president's own party. Traditionally, the opposition party offers a response when the president delivers a speech to Congress and it's usually critical.

But the point of Bowman's speech wasn't to criticize the president or open a rift in the Democratic Party. It's goal was to complement the president's speech and highlight the kinds of action the left wants to see from the White House moving forward.

"A combination of affirming the things that we hear Joe Biden say that we align with and then going a step further towards how we actually get there," Mitchell said.

For decades, the party without control of the White House has delivered a rebuttal of presidential addresses. When the president is a Democrat, the response is usually given by a Republican, and vice versa.

This year was no different, with Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, delivering the GOP's rebuttal.

The proliferation of social media has led other party leaders to jump in the game and offer their own responses via live-stream. The practice has been embraced by tea party groups to major political figures, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.

The Working Families Party, for one, started delivering its own response separate from the Democratic Party during the Trump administration. It decided to continue the tradition with the Biden administration.

"It's about inspiring everyday people to take up the mantle of change," Mitchell said.

Last year, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, R-Massachusetts, spoke on behalf of the Working Families Party. In 2019, it was delivered by Wisconsin's Lieutenant Governor, Mandela Barnes. And Donna Edwards, the former Maryland congresswoman, did it in 2018.

Top lawmakers and activists on the Left are generally happy with the Biden administration so far.

"President Biden has definitely exceeded expectations that progressives had," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, said of the president's relationship with progressives earlier this week.

But they credit some of that goodwill to their dedication to holding him accountable and making sure their voices are heard at the White House.

The Working Families Party says Bowman was the right person to convey that message.

"Congressman Bowman is a regular person," Mitchell said. "He's an educator that grew up in his district, that understands in a very real way the contradictions and challenges that everyday working class people are trying to deal with."

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Progressives respond to President Joe Biden's first address to Congress - KPAX-TV

Armadas of trucks heading southeast from three major interstate highways all come together in Cincinnati to traverse the four southbound lanes of the Brent Spence. The bridge is part of a corridor that, according to one study, contains the second-most congested truck bottleneck in the United States, ranking behind Fort Lee, N.J., home to a perennially clogged interchange leading to the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan.

Its all the trucks, said Al Bernstein, who lives in Covington, the smaller city on the Kentucky side of the bridge, and whose wife refuses to drive over it. The local citizens they get hurt. But its the trucks that cause it.

One proposal that has circulated for years would spend $2.6 billion to build a new, much wider bridge next to the Brent Spence, doubling the lanes.

The challenge of overhauling the bridge corridor is not new to political leaders in Kentucky, Ohio or Washington, where it has long been held out as a symbol of the nations backlogged infrastructure needs. President Barack Obama made a speech in front of the bridge in 2011 as he pitched a major jobs and public works plan. President Donald J. Trump promised to fix it, too.

I remember when McConnell started becoming a big person in Washington, we were like, Oh, this is great. Were going to get more federal money and were going to get the bridge done, said Paul Long, a resident of the Kentucky side of the river who would do anything I can to avoid driving across the bridge. Then we had Boehner, who was the speaker of the House at the same time, he added, referring to John A. Boehner, the retired 12-term congressman whose district sat just north of Cincinnati. People were thinking, Yes, definitely going to get it done now.

A conversation about a bridge that everyone wants to fix but no one ever does is a conversation about the dysfunction of modern politics itself. Debate over its fate quickly turns into a lament about how dogmatic philosophies like Republicans blanket aversion to tax increases, or Democrats insistence on including an ambitious federal safety-net expansion in their public works plan have supplanted the subtle art of the backroom deal.

Decades ago, such compromises were powered in large part by so-called earmarks, which lawmakers could insert in legislation to direct federal money toward their pet projects. But the practice came to be seen as a symbol of self-dealing and waste as the antispending Tea Party swept the Republican Party, and after a series of scandals including one that led to the imprisonment of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff Congress banned it in 2011.

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Bidens Expansive Infrastructure Plan Hits Close to Home for McConnell - The New York Times

U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Moline, says she will not seek a sixth term in Congress next year.

"As I turn every corner on each decade of life, I take time to reflect and evaluate what my next chapter might bring. Thats how, 10 years ago, I decided to run for Congress. And its why, today, I am announcing I will not seek reelection after completing this term," Bustos said in a statement sent by her campaign.

The congresswoman said it's "time for a new voice."

Bustos narrowly won her current term, coming within a few thousand votes of losing to Republican Esther Joy King.

The 17th Congressional District Bustos represents has long been a Democratic stronghold, but has been drifting right in recent years. Bustos won her most recent race in her rural district mainly on the strength of higher Democratic turnout in the urban areas of her district, including Rockford, the Quad Cities, Peoria, and Galesburg.

Bustos was first elected in 2012 after defeating Tea Party Republican Bobby Schilling after the 17th Congressional District was redrawn. The district is slated for redrawing again ahead of the 2022 election. Illinois Democrats steer that process with their supermajorities in both houses of the General Assembly and control of the governor's mansion.

Bustos also was chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, but she stepped down after House Democrats lost several seats in the 2020 election, despite the party winning back the White House.

King sent out a statement shortly after Bustos' announcement, saying she plans to run again next year.

"I am running for Congress in 2022 because I know that the residents of this district deserve so much better than what the liberal elites have been serving them up in Washington," King said in a written statement. "We need a battle-ready leader. We need a fighter who wont back down. Someone who knows that the residents of the 17th district matter more than Washington DC special interests."

As for Bustos, she said she's not ready to announce her next chapter yet.

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Five And Done: Cheri Bustos Won't Run For Another Term in 2022 - WCBU