Sometimes you begin a week viewing all of the meetings, lunches, dinners and whatever else is on the calendar and wonder how you are going to make it through all of this. It becomes overwhelming at times just to consider how the heck you got into all of this. Sure you have a plan in front of you but you really didn’t realize the extent of time and the number of people you were going have some interaction with. At the beginning of your career it was exciting, then as you got used to this it became the norm. First it was a day or two then the length of time crept forward, being longer and longer. Now the length becomes more than a few days and is more into a week or more. You pace yourself and realize that this is what you have chosen, and what you are good at. You wouldn’t be doing this if that wasn’t the case, right?
These last 10 days looked like a marathon when you started but were more like a sprint when you look back. So many people, new and old, that you had great conversations and debates with. There were times of work, hard work, and times of fun, just plain fun. On Thursday afternoon I was assisting the Credit Union Foundation of BC at their booth at the CUCBC trade show. As president you attend and help out where you can. An older gentleman came up to me and said “Hello Gene, do you recognize me?”. I looked down at his name badge but he had purposely turned it around. The only thing that I recognized were his eyes. Nothing else. I said he looked familiar but no I didn’t know who he was. He mentioned his name and suddenly the past became the present. I had started in the credit union system in 1978 and this person was the loans officer at that credit union. I had only been there a short while when he left due to cancer. And I hadn’t heard from him only knowing that he was a survivor of that horrible disease. Now here he was standing in from of me 29 years later. It was overwhelming. A real super person (he used to ride bulls in rodeos as his hobby) who was now telling me what had happened in his life this last quarter of a century.
Life has its bumps and potholes but when you have events like that happen to you it makes it much more brilliant. We are human. We are social animals. No matter how tired and frustrated we get, those connections, those relationships are things that sustain us and keep us going. So everyone on Twitter thank you for all those stories and sharing all what is happening in your life in those short snippets. It makes me feel connected in some small way. It sure makes my life a bit more special.
Tinfoiling 
I wonder if credit union staff are *particularly* oriented towards our own humanity and social-being-ness. There are more than a few people I work with who I simply feel privileged to work beside, day by day.They are interesting people, caring people, and inspiring people. Lucky me.