But first, a prologue: “strangest” does not equal “worst,” or even most absurd. Those spots are reserved for how America handled the pandemic, especially letting down Black and Latino people… plus all the instances of police officers who got away with homicide or assault, especially of Black, Latino, and mentally ill people… and everything under the umbrella of (shudder) Tr*mp.
Now that we’ve acknowledged this, I’ll proceed with the navel-gazing.
In 2020 I got and lost a dream job.
This is tricky to write, because I need to maintain an individual’s privacy while relating the most eventful part of my year, and if I leave out too much, it won’t make sense.
One of my favorite writers — I came across her blog in 2007 or 2008, and she’s since had a few books land on NYT bestsellers lists — hired me in August to work on a project that blew my freakin’ gourd: growing a community of women who would support each other in all areas of life, from friendship to advice to professional networking. We’d had a friendly relationship on social media, and she offered me the position directly.
(I will refer to this writer as “Dunne,” after a fictional character of similar personality, to avoid a bunch of awkward wording.)
That community — we had almost 100 members — doesn’t exist anymore.
Three months in, Dunne had a breakdown (that’d been brewing for years, I learned eventually). She didn’t maintain a line between the personal and professional, which was fine with me at first, because I enjoyed her and our two coworkers. As the breakdown escalated, however, it was impossible (and irresponsible) to ignore the harm she was doing to herself and others.
After we each gently approached Dunne about our concern — separately, we didn’t want her to feel confronted — she fired and shunned me and the two other women she’d recruited; one her friend of more than a decade.
When “the admins” (what the community had affectionately come to call us) abruptly got the boot, members noticed within a day. With us running the enterprise — onboarding new members, managing a weekly Google Hangout, moderating our makeshift forum, creating & managing shared documents, discussing ideas, etc. — members were used to hearing from us daily. All Dunne had to do was show up to host the weekly Hangout.
The community asked where we were; Dunne simply shrugged off the question. Soon she relapsed into old habits that members had confided in us were alienating, such as publicly framing the community as “exclusive” (exclusivity is counter to community by definition!) and using the weekly Hangout as a personal stage (one memorable episode: people logging off as she rambled about a famous model she once met).
Dunne flew solo for about two weeks before shutting it down. In breaking the news to what was left of the community, she finally admitted she’d fired us, telling a bizarre and very tall tale about the reason why.
I’m pausing here to note that I wish I could elaborate. I’m a proponent of being vulnerable and honest, and I say boo! to vague-posting. I don’t think Dunne will ever see this post; I think any wrinkles pertaining to me in her brain went ffffttttpppt! and smoothed out to make room for new stuff after she asked me to come back and I said no. (See what I slipped in there? I never said my pettiness level was 0%, fam.)
However...
I don’t think Dunne is well, so my gut says to bite my tongue — I don’t need the act of kicking a person while they’re down to weigh on my conscience.
Plus, we’ve reached the optimistic conclusion part of the story!
The other admins and I heard about the tall tale because the members — by now, our friends — told us, in disbelief. Sure, they’d come to the community because of Dunne, but they stayed because of the authenticity the admins fostered, they told us. And they couldn’t fathom us doing the scandalous stuff Dunne was spinning.
After dozens of us realized we’d like to keep in touch, we created a Slack group. Along with a growing number of our friends from other circles (who never even heard of Dunne), we’re slowly building a new community to accomplish the initiatives we’d so eagerly discussed.
None of us are wealthy; many of us are among the millions of Americans who have seen our income plummet during the pandemic. Pooling resources, however, we’ve been able to support each other in ways that continue to astonish me. For example — and this is just a short list! — we:
- Donated to a relief fund for Camila’s coworkers in Honduras who lost their homes to Hurricane Eta
- Rented an Airbnb for Jessie’s family after they were temporarily displaced from their home
- Bought two Ring security devices for Beatrice, a single mom, when an ex began stalking her
- Make each other laugh
- Comfort each other when we’re crumbling
- Send each other stuff in the mail
- Celebrate accomplishments, from the small (taking a shower during an insidious bout of depression) to the big (finishing a PhD dissertation)
So, yeah… 2020 showed me that adage to “never meet your heroes” is true, in big honkin’ red letters. But that’s eclipsed by the friendships I forged anyway, and the goodwill we’re building.
That stupid year also proved to me that the goal I set with my therapist — build my self-esteem — is working. WORRRRRKIIIIIING!
One of my worst nightmares came true: someone I looked up to (a semi-celebrity!) directly told people I was a bad person. A few years ago, I would’ve taken that to heart, and ruminated over scenarios of how much it would ruin my reputation. I would’ve scoured our messages and my memories for what I could’ve done better.
But my brain didn’t take that path. It noticed that the community — our community – was embracing me, not turning away. Instead of Glenn’s flat voice (that’s the name of my Anxiety Monster, I intend to write about that soon), my therapist’s reassuring one ran through my head and reminded me I had already done everything I could possibly do about the situation, by being myself. Early on we’d talked about personal values; at the top for me is respect and understanding for all people — making sure a person knows they can be themselves with me, and that I value and love them for who they are, warts and all.
I needed to trust that the people in our community would feel that… and they did! Of course a handful of people picked up what Dunne put down, but it’s made zero impact to my personal or professional life. That’s what a healthy amount of self-esteem will do for a person: make it much easier to believe Eleanor Roosevelt‘s wisdom, “What other people think of me is none of my business.”
It also helped that two other women were going through the same experience as me. Stacia, Sandy — this post is dedicated to you. The two of you — all of the women in our incredible community — are shining emeralds in a pile of 2020 dung. It was a strange year, but you prove that strange is beautiful.
(Damn, nice ending Manelius. LOL! I was wondering how to wrap this thing up.)
Words For Friends 