Final Fridays
In which I share an event I look forward to each month...
Picture it, fall of 2022. I’m working remotely for the first time in my career on a small project with three other people and an overseeing manager. I’m going a bit crazy, used to being surrounded by people at work that I work with directly or indirectly. I go into the big corporate office with its open workspaces you had to reserve a spot in, free fizzy water, and great views of the Potomac to at least be near other people, but I’m just some stranger to them who’s working in the office that day. I try to engage others, starting small talk conversations as we wait for the microwave or in the elevator, but they’re brief, everyone rushing to get back to work or chatting with those they already know. If anything, my in-office days feel emptier than those I do from home. Turns out, I may often find it hard to focus when there’s constant movement, chatter, distraction in the workplace, but I need to be around people. People who are not just my husband and daughter.
(Not my actual work location in-office back then, but you get the idea. Big, open workspaces with almost no one in a permanent spot, just there for the day or hour.)
Back when Lizzy was littler, I’d get together about once a month with other moms with kids in the same preschool she was at, but they fell to the side once they started at different elementary schools right before COVID hit. So, I came up with an idea to start a happy hour with other women in the area. As an engineer, plenty of my life was in mostly male settings and figured other women would want a chance to discuss careers and parenting. I’d reach out to anyone I knew in the area from the neighborhood or work or whatever to join. Nothing formal, just hanging out.
I wanted it to be monthly at a roughly regular day and time, the place changing to wherever I felt like going that month. There’s a tradition in the military of an informal hang on the first Friday of the month, a time for service members and their families to get together to eat, catch up, and try not to do anything that winds up as a story for future First Fridays. But I’m not military and didn’t want to overlap with First Friday so chose, instead, to meet up on the last Friday of the month, Final Friday.
I set up a Facebook group and posted an invitation in some groups like my neighborhood Buy Nothing and one for Girl Scout leaders. Lots of folks joined the group; I think at the height of things we had 40 members in there, many of whom I’d never met. (We’ve since moved to email as some folks wanted to join but don’t use Facebook.)
We’ve met almost every month since. There have been cancellations for bad weather, illness, forgetting about it entirely, or no one really feeling like gathering for whatever reason. The group that comes is usually small, a handful of us grabbing a table at a brewery or restaurant to eat, drink, chat for a couple hours about whatever’s going on in our lives. There are some regulars, some who have never come but insist on staying on the list, some who come once a year. Parents of other Girl Scouts in the troop. Coworkers. Friends of friends. Neighbors I’d never have met, otherwise.
Even when I’m exhausted or don’t feel like being social, I’m so thankful I started this. I hope we keep going for years to come.