A Year Later: Staying Calm and Bright this Holiday Season

I wrote this article nearly a year ago — a different time than we are living now, almost hard to remember. There were no concerns yet about pandemics, no decisions about whether children should be schooled at home or go in person, no upending of normal routines where adults and children created new habits and adjustments to do our best in a new atmosphere.

While there are some differences in holiday prep this year, the basics remain — I am grateful each time I see the faces of my children, I am grateful that we have simple pleasures like seeing Christmas lights and sipping hot chocolate, I am grateful even in the face of the unknown. With these humble thoughts, I am publishing this piece below, because, well, we still need the wellness for ourselves and the advice still stands. Be kind to yourselves and your loved ones.

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As we round the corner into the beginning of the holiday season, we start telling ourselves that soon we can relax, spend time with family and friends, sharing stories, enjoying some down time. 

However, it seems that the last few weeks put school and other activities into hyperdrive. Parent-teacher conferences, fundraisers, fall festivals, PTA meetings, work meetings, extracurricular activities, birthday parties (anyone else feel there are a lot of fall birthdays? Myself included)...the list goes on. And if you have more than one child, it just multiplies.

How does one deal with these weeks? Here are some thoughts to keep you flying high until winter break:

--Give yourself permission to feel your feelings. Allow yourself to feel stressed, or not want to do something, etc. WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY. This does not mean that you just opt out. But it IS okay to acknowledge that you feel a certain way. Accept that you are not perfect, not supposed to be perfect -- and that may open up a solution. It’s okay to be open with yourself and say, “I’m just feeling very overwhelmed with this. I feel like I don’t have time to sit or make dinner, and I am tired.” Breathe it out, take 5 minutes alone, and then get back into what you need to do. Which leads us to…

--Remind yourself that perfection is not the goal. My downfall is food -- I grew up in a household where my mother cooked every day. So, if I don’t have a 5 day menu plan, I feel guilty. I had to just get over that. Grilled cheese and soup is just as legitimate a meal as made-from-scratch Grandma’s recipes. 

--Create spaces for quiet. We have a pop-open sunshade that I bought a few years ago, and I started using it inside the house once in a while as a “reading tent.” Last week, my kids brought it inside and opened it again -- currently, it’s upstairs being used as a reading place and a meeting place (the kids get pillows, lie around inside and have “secret conversations.” It’s novel, it’s simple and fun, and just creates a small space where they can literally block everything around them and unwind.

--Create pleasure for you. Sometimes we don’t do the tiny, inconsequential thing that would brighten our days because something is telling us we shouldn’t. But really, why not? Use that gorgeous wine glass for your OJ. Wear that amazing red lipstick. Sing along to your favorite song in the car. Go to bed early, meditate, and doze off. Wear that cologne that sits on your dresser. It’s all good. 

The pace of life does not seem to slow -- but that doesn’t mean we have to become frantic with it! With a little foresight and self-awareness, we can navigate a smoother path for our families and find the time to enjoy the season as well.

Interpreting Crayons

My daughter was coloring the other day, her art set and scrap paper scattered on the floor. I was sitting nearby, filing papers at my desk while she talked to herself and occasionally to me, about what she was doing. 

Suddenly the paper-moving stopped, and a small hand appeared on my arm. “Mommy, fix this for me?” She waved a pink crayon at me. 

“What happened?”

“It not working.” She looked confused about why the pink was not being pink. 

I knelt down near the paper and scribbled. It came out black. Quick inspection showed that the crayon tip had a thick black streak of crayon on it, blocking the pink. I scraped it off with my fingernail, and colored it pink to show her. 

“See? It works now.”

She sat down next to me and told me it was my turn to color, so we colored together for a while. I noticed when I had the paper by itself on the art mat, I couldn’t really get a strong color out of it. I added a stack of extra paper underneath and it was much better, and we finished her drawing together. 

Now, I love symbolism. I’m all about interpreting things (hello art education and English literature) as well as finding life lessons in the little things. So my mind just jumped to this crayon and coloring incident and what it had taught me. Sometimes our meditations and life lessons come in unexpected ways.

First, we are like the crayon — we have our true self, our true color. Sometimes we will go though a tough situation, something that brings darkness into our hearts or minds, and we feel like nothing is working because when we “color,” it comes out as darkness or negativity, or something that is not really us. But, that doesn’t mean our essence has changed! All we need is something to scrape that darkness away. We cannot scrape with something soft — if I had used a tissue, that dark smear would still be there. But with a little bit of strength on the other side offering resistance, the dark is removed and we are back to coloring our true color again.

The second thing — when the crayon did its job (coloring), at first it was not very effective — line was crooked, color was weak. But when we added extra paper (or a hard surface) underneath, it worked great. So with us, when we add some support to our situation, some backup, we can color so much better. That support can be anything that helps us — encouragement, people in your corner, meditation, affirmations, seeking joy, self-care, etc. We don’t have to do it alone. 

The only difference is that when we are the crayon, we are the ones who have to do the work of removing/transforming our negativity, not expecting it to begin with an external force. Our change comes from within, so we have to love ourselves enough to be our own negativity-removing power, or at least start on the path. Add some support, and that gives us the impetus to keep moving forward. 

Keep coloring, friends. 

The Advice I Never Knew I Needed

I am the youngest of four, the youngest cousin on one side of the family, and somewhere in the middle on the other. I am generally a reserved person, rather than exuding in-your-face volume, and have a tendency to make choices that are a little off the beaten path. I have realized that a combination of these things has made me the recipient of a lot of advice over the years.

People love to give advice. I mean, I love to give advice. I love to read advice columns, which is the type of thing I open in a separate window so that in case my husband pops in while i’m online, I can close it and make it look like I am seriously reading news or working on writing instead.

Women get advice ALL the time. As girls we are advised to quiet down, be more calm, be understanding, let someone else go first, think of another person’s feelings, etc. As we get older, we are advised to sit like a young lady, not draw attention to oneself, and the barrage really never stops — work hard in your career before you settle down and get married, have children before your biological clock stops ticking, eat/avoid certain foods so that your baby is the next Einstein, don’t work too hard in your career otherwise you’ll damage your child’s psyche, don’t be too attached as a parent otherwise your career will suffer and your worth as a gainfully employed person will plummet, etc. And that’s all before you turn 35.

Suffice it to say that most women are good at tuning out the useless advice, though in some strange paradox we are still bothered by it, and are constantly in a state of comparison, to our idealized self and to others.

Occasionally though, we come across some real wisdom that just pops out to you, that creates a ripple in your mind. Those pieces speak to us. One of mine happened a few years ago, from a lovely friend, an older woman with whom I do some volunteer work. We were sitting in the outer office of a city official, where several of us had been invited to sit in on their board meeting. I came in and sat down next to her, on the last cushioned chair. A few more not-as-cushy chairs were empty.

The door opened and two older women walked in (between the age of me and my friend). Out of habit, I started to get up out of my chair in case one of the other women wanted to sit there.

My friend’s hand immediately rested on my arm. “No, you are fine where you are. There are plenty of other places to sit. You have a space too.”

I sat back in my chair and looked over; she was still calmly reading her magazine. And soon we were called in for our meeting and so the day went on. But when I got home, I really thought about what she said and why it still sticks with me a few years later. I have a space too. As the youngest person, a girl, in an Indian-American household, you do a lot of getting up. Yes, you are taken care of and loved, but you are also expected to get up for elders, men, guests, family members, etc. You offer your seat to anyone else — saying “no, it’s okay, I’ll stand” or “I don’t mind sitting over here instead.” Even after I was married, same thing: “thanks, I’m fine here” (in the corner/away from the action). After I had kids, I sat near the exit, the aisle, the end of the table, eating early and not even sitting with the adults sometimes, because what if my kids needed to leave/sleep/poop/got loud?

I have a space too. I have been at events where literally everyone had a chair except me and no one noticed as I went to another room to drag a chair over so I could be at the table. At my own house.

I have a space too. And here I was, being given permission to sit in my chair, like the adult that I am, and not get up because I belong here too. It was such a simple thing, something that I’m almost ashamed to admit I didn’t do myself. I was so busy figuring out how I could best immediately run to fulfill someone else’s needs that I didn’t bother to think that I was entitled to my own.

And so now I sit a little more. I claim my space a little more, and I do it without feeling guilty or apologetic or anything else. And it turns out, the space was waiting for me all along.