President's Message

It’s About the Relationships

I woke abruptly at 5:30 this morning thinking about relationships and upcoming meetings and what was important and what, not so much.

Over this High Holiday season, I’ve been thinking more and more about what makes life enriching and satisfying and gives us a sense of resilience and reassurance; in the good times and in the not so good times.

For me, and I believe for most of us, it’s our relationships. I’m not just talking about our family and our closest friends, however those are of utmost importance. I’m also thinking about the day-to-day relationships. The interactions between co-workers and casual acquaintances and even strangers on the street.

I’m talking about the daily interactions with casual acquaintances in the grocery store or with people we’ve just met or with people we don’t know and will perhaps never know. They give us a little bit of themselves as we cross paths or they give us an unexpected compliment on a day when it really makes a difference.

And I’m also thinking about the lifelong friends we’ve had since childhood, those important cultivated relationships formed during those formative years of high school or college, perhaps the connections we’ve made when our children were young and we needed a village, or those surprising and satisfying relationships that develop in our middle or older ages.

To me, personally, those friendships that develop as a somewhat older adult have been the most surprising and satisfying on a whole new, unexpected, level. I did not expect to be making new close friends in my 50s. Perhaps that was shortsighted of me, as some of my mother’s closest friendships took root during her 70s. Perhaps it’s because as we get older, hopefully, we become more aware and tolerant of our strengths and our challenges and we become more accepting of who we are and what that means.

Perhaps we finally feel that we have less to prove. Perhaps we are freed of some of the fears and anxieties of earlier stages of life so that we can focus more on what’s truly important to us. Perhaps we finally believe that we can show the more authentic version of ourselves and that’s okay.

These are my early morning spontaneous, free association, High Holiday season ponderings. I can honestly say that my whole life has been centered around relationships in one way or another. I am a relationship person. The quality of my interactions and interpersonal pursuits is what I value most and what keeps me feeling satisfied and motivated and enriched. And what wakes me up way too early.

Thanks to my old friends and my new. Thanks for joining with me to work for something about which we care deeply. Thanks for indulging my vision and my dream and sharing in it. My tent still has plenty of room within it. Come join me for a bit; a season, a reason or a lifetime, as that old
saying goes.

Most fondly and gratefully,

Randi