Friday Notes: The Fire Alarm
For the past several months, I've been ending each workweek by writing a short Friday note to my team. Sometimes they're funny. Sometimes reflective. They're usually sparked by something small that happened during the week and the unexpected lesson that followed. It occurred to me recently that they belong here too.
I hope the week treated you as kindly as possible. And if not, I at least hope it gave you a moment you’ll laugh about later. I definitely got mine.
I was walking across the third floor, doing that confident “I know exactly where I’m going” stride... until I slowly realized I absolutely did not know where I was going. The hallway shifted into a stairwell, and before I knew it, I was standing there, alone, realizing I had just locked myself inside. My only exit was a door with a warning sign that did everything but shout, Don’t do it.
And yet...
I did it.
The alarm that followed was immediate, dramatic, and echoing in a way that felt personally offended by my choices. In that moment, with the noise bouncing off every surface, I had the clearest mental image of security footage catching me darting down the hallway like a cat whose tail had caught on fire. That’s exactly how I felt.
Embarrassed.
Anxious.
Overwhelmed.
And just a bit feral.
Honestly, my first instinct was to disappear before anyone connected me to the alarm. But instead, I stopped. Took a breath. And phoned a friend for help. (Thanks, Stacy.)
That’s the part I’ve been thinking about since. Not the alarm. Not the awkwardness. The relief that came the moment I reached out. Because all of us have moments like that. Not always as loud, and usually not involving unexpected cardio, but moments where something goes sideways and we feel exposed. Moments where our instinct is to hide it, fix it ourselves, or pretend it never happened.
But real strength often looks less like independence and more like connection. It’s knowing when to say, I need a hand. It’s remembering we’re rarely meant to carry everything alone.It’s allowing messy moments to become learning moments.
So yes...
I set off a fire alarm.
Yes, I ran.
(Well... jaunted in heels.)
But I also reached out. And it made all the difference.
As another week comes to a close, I’m hoping you have people you can call when your own metaphorical alarms start blaring.
We all need them.
