One of the highlights of the shelter-at-home order is that I have nothing on my schedule that prevents me from attending virtual happy hours with my SPC friends.
When I was working at my first job, I became friends with a girl, Red, whose sister worked at Garmin. There were some guys there who played volleyball, and since Red played in high school and was new to the area, her sister suggested she join them to meet people. Not wanting to go alone, she asked me to go with her. We had a blast and started hanging out with them and their friends.
The group grew to encompass 25-30 people from Garmin, K-State, Sprint, volleyball teams and people who were only connected through other members. Because there wasn't one factor that linked us all, a girl started referring to our group as the Social Planning Committee, or SPC for short.
We were all single and in our 20s. Many of them weren't from KC. We played volleyball a couple of nights a week, went out dancing on Saturday nights, and grilled out together Sundays. We became roommates with each other, took trips together, celebrated Thanksgiving Eve with drinks around the world at a local bar, went to concerts, and did life. We became each other's family.
As time went on, we went through weddings and divorces, miscarriages and death of parents. Some people moved away. A few new people joined the group. As our kids got older and more involved with activities, our schedules filled up. We saw each other less and less - a couple of times a year instead of a couple of times a week.
Despite those obstacles, over the last 20 years we've still managed to keep in touch. We set up a Facebook group page. We still hung out on Thanksgiving Eve and got together for birthdays when we could. But I felt a real sense of loss. I love my husband, kids, mom and sisters, but I still miss my SPC family.
Since the first week of shelter-in-place though, we've had a weekly Zoom happy hour. And it's been awesome. There've been 10-15 of us log in and chat for an hour or so. It's been a bright point in a storm, and I'm grateful for it.
