Life, Loss + Layoffs

Good morning, Cadre. Happy Monday. I hope you're all having a wonderful day so far. I feel like I haven't seen you all in a bit in a minute. Life has been full and it's been good, but it's been full. I've been trying to use the word other words than busy because I don't think that that actually is representative of what my life is right now, but because I really try not to be too busy. I'm not always successful at that. I try to prioritize rest, but I am very intentional. And so in this season and phase of life, it feels very intentionally full.

How's everybody doing? It's been a bit since I've been on here and just having some coffee with some protein and milk in it. It's kind of like a super packed coffee, which feels good. But yeah, I'm excited to be with you all this morning. I spent the weekend with my family in North Dakota. So I grew up in Fargo. My parents and both my siblings live up there. So from where I live, it's about four hours. And it was really nice restorative time. Nice to just check in with like a slower pace, which feels good.

You know, I live in an urban area and my commutes, for example, are always like. I'm pretty used to like, oh, it's a 20 minute commute kind of everywhere, which is not bad compared to other cities. But in Fargo it's like a three minute commute everywhere. And so it's kind of nice to have that just change of pace. I saw my family, which was lovely, and my best friend from the time I was 7 years old and his family, we get to spend a lot of time with them. And I just have been thinking about friendships lately because I have a few friends that I've been friends with since I was a little kid, including this, my best friend, his name is Pat.

And we've gone through like every single phase of life together and changed together and still remain like you just pick up where you left off sort of conversations. And I'm so grateful for that. And this weekend was really a reminder of just the comfort of gathering with friends. It's really the takeaway. So that made me think about some other recent opportunities where I had to gather with new friends. And I am a person that gets energy from people and I, I need to recharge. So I, I can kind of my, my personality type is I can kind of go, go, go and be around people a lot.

And then there comes this point where I'M like, I can't be around a single person like my immediate family. But even from that, like, I need a little bit of space just to myself to, like, watch a movie or do a solo activity. And when that moment hits, it hits strong. But generally, I am a person that loves being in community with other people. And so for me, like, where I find my mental health is challenged the most is if I'm not around people. And so working from home is a challenge for me. I love parts of it because it allows opportunity for rest and recovery.

And I miss the energy that I get from other people, that I learn from other people in the proximity of just, like, working together in a space, in a shared space. Hi, Speak Wonder. Good morning. And so over the last few weeks, I've had these opportunities to be in community with old friends, like I mentioned, like, spending time with my. One of my oldest and dearest friends this weekend and his family. And a few weeks ago, my husband and I hosted a gathering at our home for a meet and greet with a mayoral candidate in Minneapolis who's a good friend of mine and has been a good friend of mine for a while.

And so it was fun to welcome in our neighbors into our home and, you know, some people that were connected with his campaign that we hadn't met and people that, you know, just had interest in the cause. And so there were people here that we didn't know that showed up. And it was a good reminder, as we, you know, wiped up the tables and put everything away, that, oh, we get a lot of energy from welcoming people into our home. And I think I get stuck on, oh, well, like, we haven't finished this house project, and so we can't have anybody in the house.

And it's like, nobody cares. Nobody cares. What they care about is, like, seeing you and gathering. And I just was reminded of that as the host myself. And then I also had the opportunity to. I was invited to a harvest dinner that a friend of mine was hosting and with that meant, and what it was, was a gathering of people within her network that don't really know each other but have some sort of connection and she thought would be a good group energy for a dinner in her home that she moved into one year ago.

This was really, like, a celebration of the home and, like, extended, let's say, housewarming, and really just, like, celebration of the community that she's built since she's moved here. About a year ago, what was so cool about that dinner was there was 15 women there and going in I knew two other women and since then it's been about a week and a half. I've been texting with all of them nonstop. And all of a sudden we realized that this, you know, this group of 15 people, the person who was hosting it knew that we had this connection, but none of us did.

And all of a sudden this 15 group of 15 people became friends with each other. And it was all because we gathered in community in someone's home. And I have been thinking about that a lot more and more as like we head into the holidays and if you're a person that gets energy from that and like the extension of hospital. Oh, I love this extension of hospitality in my home. Yeah, if you're a person that gets energy from the that and you only do it on the holidays. Holidays are also layered, right?

There's like I find that holidays are highly emotional for a lot of different reasons. I can find them to be really like I have really high expectations for them and then if they don't meet those expectations then I'm disappointed or like I feel like I haven't done enough. I feel like there's always like go tos that you got to make with holidays and that can be stressful. And so I'm just encouraging you. If you are a person who loves to gather and you get energy from people and you get energy from those sorts of spaces and you get energy from hosting, maybe invite people into your home.

It doesn't have to be fancy, it can be meat and cheese tray and community, that's the headline. Or if you're not into hosting, but you get an invite into a dinner or a gathering or something like that and it might feel outside of your comfort zone but you're curious about it, I just encourage you to lean in and try it. I am a person that loves both of those things. So I'm always going to say yes. However, a lot of my close friends are not. And so as I was sharing know my last few weeks with them.

Oh, hi Andy. Hi Andy, good to see you. As I was sharing my last few weeks with them, they were like, oh, that's a lot. That's like, like I'm not interested in the hosting part. I'm not interested in like the, like I'm interested in dinner with friends. I'm not interested in dinner with strangers. Fair. However, I left both of those experiences as a person that loved, loves those things and I was surprised. I was surprised by what I got out of it. I was surprised by how powerful it can Just be. To be in community with people that you don't know, that you're learning more about.

It's hard work to make new friends, especially as an adult, but man, I think it's important. I think it's really important. Catching up on your note, I love extending hospitality in my home. I get tripped up with wanting everything to look perfect. Yeah, that's so real. People don't care. They simply want the joy of connection. Yeah. Once you can move past that, I think there's magic in it because my mom always had this line of like, we have a house that we live in. And what she means by that is like, our house is meant for function over fashion.

And therefore you can. That's like the headline of our home, my parents home. And therefore, if something breaks, we're not gonna like be tripped up over it. We'll be bummed, but like, it's not the end of the world. And we always, always, always remember this. As a kid, we were the house to go to. Like, people were always over people. My cousins were always coming to our house. We were never going to their house. Even when my husband and I and my daughter now too. But especially when it was just my husband and I were going out to visit my parents in Fargo.

He was like, who are all these people stopping by? Because people would like bring food or they would just stop by for a chat, or like, they would bring like my parents friends with them and they'd bring their grandkids. Like, that is the sort of house that I grew up in. And I don't know that I've fostered that quite as much in my own home. And when I was home this weekend, I was like, this is community. This is like the insignificant but big moments of building community and connection. Because it's not a holiday, it's not a birthday party, it's not a big thing.

It's not a to do. It's like, come in and have a coffee if you want, and have connection for sure. I'm just here to remind you, encourage you, that I think that the act of connection, this act of building community, can take energy and it can be work, but it also can be so worth it and it can be so simple. We don't have to over complicate it. Speak, wonder. I'm reading your note. Every year in October, we host a potluck and pumpkins party. That's a good idea. I love that idea. I'm inspired by that.

I've got a few weeks left of October. Maybe I'll plan another party. Um, I think that this is just a reminder that if you're curious about it at all, if you're curious about hosting even a small gathering with a few friends, what's stopping you from doing it and building community? Something that I'm taking from the last few weeks of intentional connection is I am kind of this the center of a lot of different friend groups. Meaning those friend groups aren't necessarily close with each other, which I think is true of a lot of people.

I've always had very different groups of friends and very different interests. Very different, like, where they live, very in the, like, urban versus very suburban versus on a farm versus, like, I've just always had this really diverse group friend, which I really, really loved. But I've never really brought them together outside of my wedding. And what was magic about that was that we invited our, you know, nearest and dearest or closest friends and family to our wedding. And I kid you not, there have been maybe five or six different connections from people that have been within my husband and mice network.

So what I mean by that is we sat a few couples at a table, and there was my friend, one of my best friends, one of my husband's best friends from college were sitting across the table from each other, like, I know you from someplace the whole dinner, right? They can't figure it out. Can't figure it out. And they're kind of going through circles of how they know each other. By the end of the dinner, my husband's friend says to my friend, did you by chance travel to Cairo with a group trip in 2008 after you graduated college?

My friend was like, yeah, I did. And I went with a group of people from some colleges in Iowa and some colleges in Minnesota. And he was like, we were on that trip together. They had met right after college and never reconnected. And they reconnected at our wedding. And they've been on this trip and traveled many different countries together for two weeks. The reason why I'm saying that is to just say that, like, these random connections that you make, it's so cool when they come back together. And it's so cool even if you have a mutual friend connection, right?

Because it's like, oh, we've lived the same journey at some point, or we've walked alongside each other, or we've been connected in some way. And the reminder of that and, like, being in community and being in circles with people and finding connection where you really least expect it is really exciting. It's really joyful and it's vulnerable to put yourself out there it's vulnerable to do it and try but I just know through get something out of it. I encourage you to think about it encourage you to welcome people into your home even if it's not perfect encourage you to go to a gathering where you don't know anybody make conversations with people that become a new friend and just I think being intentional about that is really important because you might be surprised by the community that you can build and the connections that you can make and how much joy it can bring you.

So that's. I'll. I'll leave that there. I hope that that was resonant for you and I hope that that gave you some things to think about as you head into your week. I just appreciate you all. Cadre Sphere it's going to be back in a rhythm. I'm really glad to be here glad to be here with you all and I hope you have a really wonderful week. Okay bye. Cadre.