For the past few years, having meetings with my WIF mentoring group has been a regular part of my life. We have changed the frequency of the meetings over the years, but we have been meeting up regularly since 2015. I’m always so proud of our group for being able to maintain our meetings even after the official mentoring circle time ended. And while there are a few members of our group who aren’t a part of it anymore, a majority of us have stayed connected and we have 6 of us who have been regularly there since the beginning.
In 2020, we had one of our brunches. It was right before everything shut down. I don’t think any of us could have imagined what was going to happen in a few weeks. I know we were all aware of what was happening, but it felt like it was on the other side of the world and wouldn’t come here. But of course, we know now that it did come here and we’ve been dealing with this for over a year now.
We talked about having a meeting over Zoom, but we never ended up making that happen. I think all of us were feeling a bit burned out on Zoom, so we didn’t want to do it. As much as we wanted to connect, we didn’t make it happen. Also, I know for myself, I had nothing to really update the group about.
But earlier this year, we agreed we wanted to see each other again and start our brunches. We wanted to wait until we were all vaccinated, just to keep things as safe as possible. And finally, 16 months after our last brunch, we got together this past weekend.
Almost everyone could make it, so that was nice. We used to do our brunches at a restaurant, but we wanted to wait until restaurants were a bit safer. So one member of the group offered to host. That’s how the group started, so it seemed fitting that the restart of the group would be the same way.
It was a really hot morning, but we were able to be in the shade so it wasn’t too bad. And I was just so happy to get to see everyone again! I just wanted to catch up with everyone, even if it was more of a social catch-up than a career one.
But we still went around the group to discuss what we’ve been able to accomplish in the past year. Some people had more than others, but that’s ok. Honestly, I’m just glad we are all ok. One member of the group had gotten COVID, but she didn’t have too severe of a case and she is fine now. But I know how lucky we are that everyone is safe and healthy.
And I did share the few career-related things I had to update everyone on. I have had auditions during the shutdown and I have gotten better at self-taping. I also have a way to do voiceover auditions now, and I didn’t do those before. And I shared some of the struggles I had while isolated and not being able to be around others. It was nice to share those things with a group that understood how I felt and was completely supportive of me.
We had a longer brunch than normal. Partially because we hadn’t seen each other in a while and partially because we weren’t at a restaurant and felt like we needed to leave. I’m so happy we did this. I missed all of these women so much and I missed the support of the group and the special bond we have with each other. And I needed time around friends, and this was the biggest group of friends I’ve been around in a long time.
We are hopefully now back on track with our regular meetings. We might not be back at a restaurant for a bit longer, but we will find ways to meet regularly. Maybe we will just rotate from one house to another. Maybe we will find a park or other public space. We don’t know how we will meet up just yet, but we know we will meet.
I’ve said so many times how special this group is. And showing how we didn’t let a pandemic stop us just proves it even more.
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