Goodness Gracious! I don’t know about you, but I have received so many emails and text messages over the last two weeks from every company that I have ever signed up for emails from. I am just now starting to recover from information overload and from what seems like some sort of anxiety crash. Last week felt like it had 5 Tuesdays and 6 months all crammed into just a few days. 

Beyond the election, I also spent a chunk of time last week taking my teenage son back to a residential facility in Little Rock, Arkansas that specializes in Reactive Attachment Disorder. If you aren’t familiar with his challenges, feel free to ask! We’re an open book! On my flight back here to DC on Thursday, I had to fly through Atlanta. That was a surreal experience…being in Atlanta, watching vote counts trickle in and seeing a Philly Cheesesteak restaurant across from where I was sitting. I decided that was a sign. I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but I knew at least what I was having for dinner — a philly cheesesteak in Atlanta. In the same breath, my phone rang. It was a fellow WES member calling to check on me. He knew I was having a week. He didn’t have solutions or answers but he had a moment to just make sure I was still putting one foot in front of the other. That phone call, wow, it was exactly what I needed in that moment.

Since the Pandemic began, there have been moments like that, moments that in retrospect have meant so much more to me than I knew at the time. Without hesitation, those moments were made memorable and sustaining by the “We” in my life. The “We” of the election. The “We” of connection. The “We” of friendship. Another friend and I have a weekly facetime scheduled with each other. I think I have talked with her more since March than in the past couple of years of friendship. I have another friend that recently moved across the country. We now unapologetically send pictures of each other’s kids almost daily. Those pictures mean so much to me. Those moments all mean so much to me. That personal moment where someone stopped in the middle of their busy day, thought of me, and reached out.

Balancing all those uplifting moments with my job, the person that is tasked with facilitating communications for WES can feel like a balancing act. I feel this balance every time I schedule an email to go out. I know you all need to know what’s going on and I know we’re all burned out on emails and digital communications and zoom meetings. AND, when I heard Ryane Nickens speaking about communities this past Sunday, I knew my call and my commitment. My commitment is to work as hard as I can to get our information out on as many avenues as it makes sense for our community. But I need something from you, too. I need your commitment. I need you to call your friends (Find the WES Phone book on the website!). Invite them to the join you at a WES event. Invite them to coffee hour. Invite them to the Poetry Series. Make sure your friends with kids know about the Supply Pick-up drive that Ndara has planned. Talk to each other. WES communications isn’t a one way highway. It’s a complex highway system where “We” communicate with each other.

Let’s make this pandemic a time that we deepened our relationships with each other, similar to how we’ve responded to the Caring News messages that we’ve received! Let’s create memorable moments where a friend called you up and it made your week that much better. 

Who are you going to commit to reaching out to?

Together,

Robyn Kravitz, Communications Coordinator