Connected

One of the next September prompts that looked interesting was talking about one person you connected with that day. It was the prompt for last Thursday.

That day was fairly busy. Early morning meetings, later morning workout… and a bunch of busywork for some upcoming slides I need to get ready with planned for the afternoon.

I had the prompt in the back of my head and was wondering who in the world I was going to connect with. I wanted to get time to write so I kept thinking about it during the day.

But then I ended up getting a Bestie text that a routine colonoscopy was halted because she went into Afib and they sent her to the emergency room to monitor her heart.

On the surface, it wasn’t a huge emergency. Her heart rate jumping was concerning but she just drank a ton of “stuff” for prep and it can cause that. She was in the best place to be.

But the brevity of the text was frightening. They couldn’t do it. She was a little scared. She was going into Afib. I wanted more but it was also enough?

Underneath that, I felt myself spiraling about a bunch of other things. I feel like when something happens, I internalize it, rationalize it, update people because it makes me feel better, and then fixate on OTHER things to send me into hysterics that aren’t really the reason.

It’s good to notice it, I guess?

I got the chance to connect with two besties. One was quick, and we quickly got/gave advice on a few other subjects. Then, I started texting another one and she happened to be in the car and we ended up talking for 20m.

We did talk about the hospital emergency but then went into other subjects. She got really personal about something that was happening to her. She prefaced it with, “I would never say this out loud to [my daughter] but I can say it to you” and the theme of the share stuck with me, and continues to stick with me. I wanted to call her out on it. I wanted to lay into her why her thinking was so completely off-base and wrong and I just didn’t say anything. I’m not upset about not saying anything, I am acknowledging the fact that with friendship sometimes it’s nicer to stay silent. And she is going through such a huge growth journey right now and I know in the future, we can have time to unpack it in the proper way.

Our friendships are about togetherness but also about growing. And I love that so much. Some friendships more than others but they are all on their own path.

But we definitely did connect. She felt comfortable to voice her frustrations to me.

The moment continues to stick with me and I want to work on how to talk with my friend at a later date but that day, I had been attempting to connect with a new-to-me colleague who I wanted to know more about. I’m attempting to grow my team and they are a possibility to add to it and they had been dodging my inquires to chat.

It’s so annoying when people don’t reliably use the Schedule Assistant for outlook calendar to reschedule meetings. But I reached out again for an intro call and they were available at that moment.

So I jumped on it! It meandered a bit but I drew them out and got them talking. It literally was a 25m intro call about what we were both working on, KPIs, and other opportunities to grow but at the end, they were asking me questions and it wasn’t such a weird “why are we talking” moment.

I really felt good about it. I don’t know if this person will join my team but I think it’s a possibility in the next 6-18 months and it was a good connection to start. I will need to cultivate it (I’m really working in my word of the year…) but it’s a good goal for me to have.

And that leads me to the most unexpected connection. We were having dinner at a restaurant on Friday and Griffin mentioned that the Theater Kick-off party was the next evening. Since he doesn’t go to the school, we don’t get emailed about any of the events so it’s understandable why it wasn’t on my radar. But I LOVE going to those things!

It immediately made me smile and I was looking forward to it all day Saturday. I don’t have many “friends” in Theater at the moment because most of them were in Sam’s year or after, and I just don’t have the opportunity to chat with Griffin’s friends’ parents.

I headed over and it was so lovely. There were disco balls in the trees. There was a long table for all the kids. I definitely didn’t take enough photos!

The host is someone who I would love to sit down and talk more with but she was “hostessing” and I moved on. I had one or two short chats, then we watched the opening song that the kids debuted.

Which had amazing vocals. Not my type of song but still amazing.

I saw a nice couple who I did not know and two chairs open at their table so I asked if I could sit down. I ended up talking to them for over two hours.

I have to remember their names, so I’m writing down Tracey and Kevin. Shoot, I don’t know if it’s Kevin now. I know it’s Tracey because I asked her if it was Lisa or Tracey so that’s stuck in my mind.

But they were so delightful! Their daughter was a sophomore and they had such nice things to say about G. As do most of the parents, which I always love hearing. But I had not heard anything about their daughter so I could not reciprocate.

They had a daughter in their first year of college so we commiserated about drop-offs. We talked about diet, jobs, theater, school, and all sorts of things.

The wife talked a little more but the husband was contributed a bunch. At the end of the night, I was starting to yawn and mentioned it was 9:30 and I was going to head home. We all expressed how time flew and it was so nice chatting.

It’s those moments that feel so good.

I was reminded as I went home, and also this morning, that I’m starved for those moments.

When I get them, I grab them and hug them too me like it’s never going to happen again.

And it’s not that I should be complaining about how I don’t get that in my life. I need to change my mindset to state what it is about those moments that I want more of.

“I want to feel…”

It feels hard to acknowledge and say out loud that I want to feel connected. It feels a little silly. But it’s so fundamental. I want to feel seen and understood. I want to feel a mutual interest and that I was wanted to be there.

And to some people, that won’t be understood.

But those feelings are what I want more of and it honestly makes me sad to acknowledge it because I feel unheard in other ways.

I am speaking a language that is not known to others.

I need to find a better way to communicate when I’m ready but it’s nice to keep hitting those building blocks of what makes me feel alive and how I should not be ashamed of wanting to chase it.

So yes, I did connect multiple times with people on Thursday. And the bestie was monitored and had no issues after that. And I connected on Saturday… and also really, I’m connecting every day.

And I can get joy from that.