How is everyone doing this week?
This week I am feeling more positive than I have in several weeks. Here in Vermont and in many other places, our leadership is working hard to safely re-open businesses and get our communities moving again and this gives me hope. Hope is a powerful thing.
What does this soft re-opening mean for Social Tinkering? It means I am once again working on scheming and devising ways to get this social club off the ground once and for all when we can all finally get together and hang out again! I am very excited for this but it also makes me nervous because that means I really have to get my shit together and put action to all of these words. No more putting it off and wondering and fantasizing about how cool this social club will be. Now is the time to really get down to the nitty gritty details and prepare to hold my first meetup and introduce Social Tinkering to the community. Fortunately, I still have a couple of months at least probably to prepare, so I too can go slowly.
When this coronavirus hit us all, I was just about to schedule my first meetup and publish this website. This means that after 8 years of committing my time 100% to my two babies, I was finally going to get back into the working world and do something for my professional growth again. When the quarantine order came I was like, "Okay, so, that's not going to happen now. Maybe not at all? What is the world going to look like now?" Listening to people's humorous and sad and desperate thoughts on shifting their lives suddenly and unexpectedly to being stay-at-home parents with or without employment has resonated very clearly with me since I have been a stay-at-home parent not professionally working for 8 years. But I was just about to shift - to get out to the professional community again and then the world said "Bam! Just kidding!" So, it's been a balance, (my personal keyword this year), to stay positive and maintain hope that the world will return to a status of normal movement enough that I can still create this venture. It's been a balance between that positive forward-looking vision and the daily surge of news and responses that at times threaten to make me want to crawl into a cave and hide.
How have I kept the balance and been able to still focus on the future? My friends, my husband, my family, (and quite honestly my therapist), all connecting with me in person, over the phone, video, social media, email, and from our porch steps. My social circle is incredible and supportive and encouraging and full of humor and love. I am a very lucky person to have this, but it takes commitment on all of our parts to maintain these connections and relationships that help each of us so very much.
So my questions this week to you are the following:
What does the slow re-opening of our world mean to you and your future? How can you find your sense of balance by slowly but steadily working towards your goals?
What gives you hope this week?
And lastly, (and what I think is the most important question), who are the people in your life that help you maintain your balance and how can you reach out and help others with theirs?
Because really, we need our people. It's that simple. We need each other to help us through the hard and sad times and to find laughter and find joy and to help us focus on the things that are most important to us. So reach out and allow others to reach out and help you. And local folks, get ready, because Social Tinkering is getting ready for you.
"Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives."
~Brene Brown
