A Coda

I’m home with my cat, curled on the couch smelling delicious while my diy concoction of old banana, coconut oil, and honey works its magic on my dry, frizzy hair, since I didn’t manage to condition it last night. I think we all knew what I’d choose when the options were self-care or having a drink with an old friend in town for just one night.

Judge me as you will, but I think social media is a gift. It has allowed us to connect and keep track of folks from throughout our lives. Some people think that friends are like pairs of shoes, if you get a new one, you should get rid of an old, no long useful one. I’m not like that. (I’m not like that with shoes either, truth be told.) When it comes to the people in our lives, I think more is more and I’m pretty good at keeping in touch, and always grateful to know that people who have known the various versions of me are out there knowing this version. It was great to see my summer camp cabin mate. We once kayaked and shot arrows and short-sheeted beds together. Now she is a professor and gender advocate and whiskey drinker and I’m so impressed.

The past two days back at work were, as expected, very, very hard. Like many organizations, we were faced with the horrible decision to lay-off some of the staff. I’ve known for a little bit that this day was coming, and played a role in assessing who would be impacted, and it stinks. My job, after informing the unfortunate member of my team, was to manage the communications to the rest of the staff in a way that eased nerves and inspired understanding. It’s not possible, really, but I did the best I could. Of the senior team, I am the only woman, and am known as a strong mentor and sounding board. That’s flattering in most cases (not the lone woman part), but today it meant a lot of teary and/or angry colleagues in and out of my office. I hope I honored them and offered the support they needed, but time is the only healer that will really help right now, and the only one I can’t provide.

I’ve done a good bit of crisis pr ranging from the day someone dropped a box labeled “anthrax” off at the BSO, to pandemic communications, to MTT’s health, and currently a MeToo situation which has resulted in my getting quoted in papers from Cleveland to Chicago to Portland, Or. But nothing is as bad as layoffs.

Asking for sympathy for my hard day, on a day when folks lost their jobs, is awful, of course, and even I am not that narcissistic. But I’m happy to have a quiet night at home to feel the feels.

I’ve been thinking a lot about sliding doors. What if I never left the BSO or I continued to live with Emilio in the Bronx rather than move to Miami? There’s no changing the past, so the only thing we can do is have no regrets and look forward. But also backwards – I’m so glad I saw my friend last night and another friend passing through town last week, all my friends in the Berkshires, my old friends in the UK and new ones in Jordan. No matter which way the doors slide, I’ll be ok because of this wonderful chosen family around me!

And while I’m happy to be back home and on my couch, I’m not staying put for long, because….you know me. Miami Beach at the end of the month, back to the Berks in before the end of the summer, a West Coast trip is shaping up for the fall, and London in December. And another big adventure in the spring. I’m also toying with a bike trip from Vienna to Budapest in October – stay tuned for more on that one.

And maybe I’ll actually do my long-promised, oft-talked about, never-acted-upon attempt at turning this blog into something more real. Stay tuned for that one as well.

Thanks for coming along.