It’s not even 8:30 am yet, but….

It has been a wonderful day at work 🙂

Since yesterday I was struggling with some stuff, I wanted to take a moment to follow-up by focusing on the positive in my life.  Right now the overwhelming bright spot is my job.  Since July I’ve moved into working on classroom management full-time, and have been really enjoying the work.  This area o focus (and new position) has really given me a voice and platform for change I’ve NEVER had before.  This morning two things happened that reminded me of that platform, and how fortunate and happy i am to be here.

Happening #1: feedback from my manager.  I’ve been developing a revised Scope and Sequence for our classroom management trainings at our summer program.  It has been complicated and messy and so many levels of cray, but I sent in my SECOND draft to my manager today and she was so impressed.  I usually don’t take positive feedback well, but I worked really hard on this document and to hear that she thought it was so strong after only the second iteration made me so proud of myself–and I’m RARELY proud of myself!

Happening #2: The Senior Managing Director on our team asked me to give her a call this morning. Turns out she had shared one of my reflections (it was a complex email I sent her on race/class clashes in our organizations–pretty heavy and hurtful stuff) with the SENIOR leadership team for our wing of the organization.  She said everyone was so taken aback–even the SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT of our team went up to her personally, saying she not only wanted to talk with me to learn more about this, but that she was so moved, she wanted to share it with OUR ENTIRE ORGANIZATION!  While that is terrifying, it feels so good to know that when I spoke my truth, it resonated with others, and they felt so compelled to take action by it.

I am FLOATING.  It’s been such a wonderful day, and I haven’t even finished my coffee yet 🙂

It just goes to show you–even when one aspect of your life is struggling, it doesn’t mean everything is.  I have so much to be grateful for and proud of 🙂

Redefining Relationships

I’ve been thinking about relationships a lot this summer.  While I’ve made time to see many friends, a large majority of this summer has been spent traveling for work, almost always alone, and being given lots of time to think about various parts of my life.  One topic that keeps coming up: friends.  I feel very fortunate for the friends I have in my life, but I’ve been realizing that many of my friendships seem to be morphing and changing a lot.

And what I’m starting to realize is that even friendships I once thought of as close are now becoming fringe friends themselves.  You know fringe friends-the ones you reach out to for a night out or a casual happy hour/cup of coffee.  The ones that you may double date with or that you text once in awhile to see how things are going.  They are definitely great people.  However, they aren’t going to be the ones you call crying, the ones who come get you when you’re locked out of your house, or the ones who come over when your husband is out of town and you’re scared.  But this is FINE–you need fringe friends; you need happy and light and fun people in your life when all you want to do is unwind and relax and have a good night.  But, it can be weird (and disheartening) when people you used to be close with begin to look a lot like fringe friends.

I’m learning that as you grow older, your lives will inevitably change, and hopefully you will grow into the people you’ve always wanted to be.  But what happens when you grow at different times, in different ways, or even in opposite directions?  What happens when things you once valued as friends no longer seem to matter to both of you?  What happens when you begin to question your friend’s commitment to your relationship, or vice-versa? What do you do then?  I think you have to distinguish between the friendships where you are OK with that happening, and the friendships where you are not.

But how do you redefine those friendships, if needed? If it’s time to move this friendship onto the fringe, do you sit down and talk about it, or do you mutually let each other drift away? If you don’t talk about it, how do you deal with the awkwardness and potential hurt feelings through this transition?  Can you actually go from great friends to fringe friends?

But if you decide you want to “fight” for your friend, how do you do call attention to the issue in a way that doesn’t make THEM feel defensive, but also doesn’t make YOU feel like you’re carrying too much of the blame for the distance in your friendship? And even worse, how do you fight for a friendship when you’re uncertain if the other person would do the same kind of fighting for you?  This one weighs on me most heavily.  I’ve had this go very badly before, and I’m not sure I have the guts or energy for that kind of rejection again… 

This is a big year for me (first year of marriage, finally have my career in an exciting place, looking to buy a house, lots of travel, eventually getting ready for a baby, etc.) and I find that a lot is changing.  I need to ensure that the people I surround myself with–my closest circle–are folks who support these changes and will be positive influences for me.  And I need to feel like I matter to these people–like my friendship is unique and special and important to them.  I still have a lot of growth I want in my life, and I need to make sure that my friends are both an inspiration and a safety net for me as I strive to get there. And if my current friends are not there for me in that capacity, then maybe we just need to redefine the relationship and be honest about where (and who ) we are.