Chess again

This past summer I played in a regular rated chess tournament (a team event) for the first time in 8 years. Last time I took a long break (although not this long), it took me about 9 months to put my game back together. I'm about 5 months in this time and while my results aren't showing it yet, I can tell I'm starting to figure some things out. My confidence is definitely improving, but I don't have any swagger yet. Might take good results to bring that back. After such a long layoff, just remembering to make your moves properly, write down your moves, and hit your clock is a challenge. Some things have definitely changed that I'm adjusting to. The fashions in openings are quite different. A lot of white systems seem to feature a queenside fianchetto (b3), which didn't seem to make many appearances in the past. In my last tournament someone even did that in an open Sicilian. Also games are now played more often with an increment instead of a delay. Going from a 5 second delay to a 30 second increment definitely requires different strategy and I'm still figuring that out. Last time I played once I started getting better I eventually made Expert, which was a real surprise. I didn't maintain it, and it's not too surprising why. I had around 3 years of scoresheets (mostly 2007 to 2010) I'd never reviewed and learned lessons from. A lot of what was happening in my life outside of chess I'm sure was a factor back then. I recently upgraded my chess computer hardware/software stack. I bought my first PC in about 15 years - a headless HP desktop off of clearance at Office Depot - and I upgraded several chess products - Chessbase 15 (from 12), Fritz 17 (from 15), Mega Database 2020 (from 2008), and Endgame Turbo 5 (from 3). I have not upgraded my Corr Database 2002 (!) yet to 2020, because it's expensive. I hear though that they play correspondence chess with computers now, so apparently those games are super high quality and I'm sure I'll eventually get it. I have stopped using Chess Openings Wizard (formerly Bookup) for now, because the integrated MyMove features in Chessbase is just too easy and enticing. We'll see how this journey goes. My schedule is quite busy and not every tournament is going to work for me. I'm also playing online in slow games (i.e. one move required every 3 to 10 days), which is something I've also done in the past.