Coping skills for a big family reunion

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I’m going to be visiting family that I’ve been estranged from for 13 years. It’s going to entail flying, to a state I’ve never even visited before, for a WHOLE WEEK, staying in a house I’ve never seen before, leaving my boyfriend behind (I feel like I got lucky meeting him), and joining LOTS of estranged family members for my grandfather’s 94th birthday (94 is pretty awesome).

I imagine lots of hugging, confusing emotions, crowded rooms, loud talking, lots of questions from people who haven’t seen me since I was 20. They’ll probably expect me to ask them questions too. I’m kinda scared. I’m kinda excited. I’m trying not to freak out. I’ve got a few weeks to get emotionally and conversationally prepared.

Does anyone have any advice? Any coping skills? Any good questions to ask people I haven’t seen in forever? They don’t know I’m an Aspie but considering that they knew me when I was a kid when my oddness was WAY more pronounced it probably wouldn’t surprise them. I can’t just say to my aunt, “I need a quiet room to disappear to for 30 minutes every couple of hours”, can I? (BTW, I don’t have a few grand for a diagnosis but trust me I fit in here…haha that’s ironic right? To only fit in with people in part because of my inability to fit in with people…).

P.S. (This paragraph is slightly off topic…back story) The estrangement was not my fault…just a bunch of lies from one of those parents who choose to get revenge against her ex-spouse by filling his daughter (me) with a bunch of horrible lies about him and his family. And being the gullible and loyal person I am, I chose to believe that she was telling the truth. Then, with no father to intervene, the short story is that I was left with just one abusive parent who sabotaged my adult life to try to keep her special needs child from growing up and leaving her. It took me till 32 but when finally woke up and realized what was happening I found the courage to go into hiding from her crazy possessive abusive lying butt…and she hasn’t known where I am or how to call me for almost 2 years now…life is sooo much better. I’m away from all that…now it’s time to try to focus on the future and to try to reconnect with my real family.

I’m pretty confident that I’m not walking into a circumstance where there’d be any negative treatment…my dad’s family doesn’t hate me…I just, well, haven’t seen anyone in a long time. It should be a happy visit…if I can just keep from doing something embarrassing.

mentally prepare a list of questions to ask (what are you doing now/where are you living- do you like it there/Qs about their kids or partners etc), and make sure you seem interested in their answers ('that sounds great/ sorry to hear that/ what happened then?'). Most NTs seem to love talking about themselves so a lot of the time all you need to do is add little prompts to the conversation every now and again- yet theyll walk away feeling theyve had a long deep conversation with you. And once theyve told you something about themselves reply with a similar bit of information about yourself, like 'oh you just got married- congratulations, i've met someone great who ive been with for xyz years too...'. They'll probably all be asking you stuff anyway so you could also just answer whatever question they ask and then say 'what about you?'.
oh and with people from your past, talking about things that happened in the past is usually a good way to keep conversation flowing too. little funny stories and memories that you can laugh over together.
most important thing is probably to try to stay calm

Don't go?

I'd ditch the overwhelming effort and just decide not to go at all. I'm all the happier for it.