I just want to shout out some people real quick here because I have been dealing with some personal stuff recently and the past couple of weeks in particular have been pretty rough over here (some of y'all know the details, but the tl;dr is that death looming imminently in the family right before holidays is never a fun thing to deal with), and I am just really grateful to a lot of my friends around here for being terrific.
This past J draft was one of the weirdest ones I've dealt with since I got into management - I was out of town this weekend with my family, and there was not a lot I could even do there except be stressed. My brain did not want to cooperate on a lot of things, and the past two weeks have been just a giant ball of stress and sadness for me so I wanna just say a little thank you to some of the people who have made things easier lately, whether they knew what was going on with me or not
@SDCore - always the first person I go to when I'm losing my mind, thank you for the dog pictures and for listening to me complain for like four years now.
@lespoils - I'm so proud of you and I'm so glad you're my friend and our podcast about nothing is so much fun and I'm glad we finally got our shit together to make it happen.
@Aleris - the best co-GM/hype man/accomplice I could ask for, I'm so glad you signed with us in Nevada back in the day, I can't imagine what the past few seasons would have looked like GMing with anybody else.
@Fluw - you are genuinely one of the nicest people in sim leagues. You are always so willing to help out, to share the resources you have, and I think the world would be a much kinder place if there were more people like you in it.
@hhh81 - we already talked about this, but you have had my back recently in ways I didn't even ask for, and I appreciate you a lot. thank you for not being afraid to tell me when I'm wrong about something and for being able to have those conversations in a respectful and grownup way.
@RashfordU and @Ace - everything that is happening in Winnipeg is terrific and special and I'm very excited to be a part of it. we have such a cool group of people in there right now, and I love how involved everybody is and how much we work together.
the girl gang - I'm not gonna name you all but you know who you are. I'm so grateful for all of you and for your friendship and for the times you listen to me vent about things in both real life and sim life. I think it's hard sometimes to find connections with other women in an environment, like sports, that always wants to pit us against each other, where being "not like other girls" is what people expect us to aspire to, and I'm so glad I have y'all and I'm happy for everything we have in common and all the new things we introduce each other to.
anyway, there are a lot of names I could throw out here, but i'm not trying to make this a whole manifesto or anything. If we've talked recently, even about dumb stuff, please know that it's meant a lot to me. thanks for being the best <3