Time Capsule: Last Year's Unpublished Post from the Holiday Season

As is likely the case with most people who like to share their ideas through blogging, I often begin to write a post only to have it sit in my draft list. Last year I began a post that was never finished. Fear that it would not be understood prevented it's publication. The sentiment is eerie in its innocence and somewhat prophetic in its warnings. The italicized sentiment you are invited to read contains the un-edited words of the woman who existed at this keyboard just a year ago. The odd ordinary words carry a message of a simpler time when the news carried stories other than those regarding a worldwide pandemic. Before I send you on your way back to December 2019, you need to know this about me. This time of year as my children enjoy cranking up the holiday songs because they find joy in the familiarity and sentiment, I find sadness and a sense of emptiness. Not a sadness that I own personally but an emptiness that feels large enough to encompass all the world's sorrow. Sound crazy? Perhaps it is. So much so that I have never successfully put words to it. The words below were an attempt to wrap my head around this feeling. 

December 2019: 

With Thanksgiving over and the Holiday Season upon us, just try to get through the day without mention of gifts and wants and ways to make others "know how much you care"...all the talk is of "stuff".  How much you need, how much they want... how much, much much.  Equally numerous are the ways in which folks attempt to denounce what has become of this time of year: the misplaced attempt to make happiness happen. Can I take all of this one step further? I posit that the solution to the mayhem that has become the Holiday Season lies in our everyday life. The direction of this season is not determined and crafted in just this one month, but in the eleven that precede it as well. The feeling I get this time of year is magnified yes, but it is not new or unfelt throughout the year. 

Here's what I mean. 

We have lost a sense of gratitude for the simple daily life happenings. We have taken for granted all that we have and forgotten that there are those who have not. We need to start to recognize what is in front of us lest we require a wake-up call of epic proportions. I want to try to help you understand the pit in my stomach and what I feel:

It's the same feeling I get when eating at an establishment that hosts televisions depicting the current state or our world, perhaps a war-torn country or the most recent murder, while I nosh on my burger and consider whether or not to dip the next french-fry into ketchup. It seems to me we take for granted our luxury of circumstance. We are able to witness the destruction sustained by others without so much as a second glance...after all, the news is saturated with misery and we've perhaps seen this footage so many times that we have the indulgence of calling it redundant. Wow! 

We have become a culture that is flippant about the important and hyper-discerning about the frivolous. We watch the news with our bowl of popcorn as though the tragedy of others is nothing more than a movie reel, while we take time and focus to decide which of the plethora of winter coats or fancy boots we should choose, mostly based on style and appearance instead of necessity. There is something terribly awry with the way in which we are using our minds and hearts, and I believe we need to regain our focus on our humanity. We need to think before we act, consider our nonchalance in taking in the news of our world and strive to become more centered on how to best nurture the hearts of people toward love for all. In a simple statement, we need to reconnect with our connection. But how?

So that is where my work on that post ended. One thing I wonder is if we need to be grateful this year for the pause, the chance to collect our thoughts and the opportunity to view humanity with eyes that can see beyond our wants. I heard a newscast that said as a vaccine is made available, it would not necessarily be considered for our earthbound counterparts in third world countries. Really? Is it possible that we still don't see it?  If I have not made sense of this to you, if it is still not evident, then perhaps we have a longer way to go than anticipated. In the end, regardless, I am grateful and filling my heart with the world and all the pain it holds. It is there and then, when each of our hearts connects with the pain and suffering of the world, that a true love for humanity can be born.

Have an Awesome Day Anyway

It's Sunday evening...the eve of another week of remote learning for my five children and remote teaching for me. While I should be spending this time perfecting my lesson plans, I feel compelled to get a message to you. Yes...this time is tough. Yes...we miss how life used to be. Yes...we are tired and overdrawn, and unable to see an end in sight. And finally, yes...when we wake up to this reality again tomorrow, it is possible to Have an Awesome Day Anyway!

As far as anxiety and stress are concerned, if it is a sudden onslaught of either or both, my response is not generally that of most...I meet spontaneous stress, such as witnessing a car accident or coming upon a hallway teenage confrontation, with peace and calm. Those who know me have come to realize that my peaceful nature does not always accurately convey the urgency that might be necessary, but that is just how I respond. My response is spot-on, unequivocally,  full of Donna-ness. (This, by the way, I know drives some people crazy!)

But what about the anxiety and stress that accompanies ongoing disillusionment or consistent-under-the-radar abuse to the system? This type of stress can easily go undetected until my body eventually begins to respond with the desire to sleep more, work less and exude a shortness of happiness that belies my innately optimistic personality. Given a long enough trip down the path of low-level stress, or in our present case, high-level stress that has become the daily norm so as to be disguised as low-level stress, and I neglect to take proper care of my well-being. Think 15 to 20-year-marriage-that-went-south-before-its-first-anniversary, kind of stress. It just silently ferments and eats away at the heart, suffocates the drive and deteriorates the self, until suddenly the victim realizes that they have been reduced...in some undetected and undefined way. The victim has become a survivor.

My friends, that is where we are. We are in the midst of an anxiety ridden timeframe. There is no current escape. This is not immediately fixable by you, or me, or anyone. It just is...low-level, high-level, constant-eat-away-at-the-soul, stress and anxiety. But here's the thing. We cannot wait any longer in hopes that it relents. We have to live! We have to have an awesome day! We need to repeat our mantras and meet these challenging times with deliberate determination to make today amazing and tomorrow even better! 

I get it. This is not like staying in a bad relationship where we have control over the timeframe. This is not like quelling the savage teenage attitude where we have control over the outcome. This is a pandemic, where we have been forced to relinquish any and all control. Or have we? I don't think so. We can still have control over our choices, our actions, our interactions. We have the control to have an awesome day anyway. 

And so, my wish for you on the eve of this new week: Have an Awesome Day Anyway. Not sure how? Look around you. Appreciate the world moving along with the seasons, daily weather, cycles of life. Appreciate that you can serve others with a smile, an air hug, a love-note. Go buy a little gift and leave it on a doorstep, or under your child's pillow. Don't miss these opportunities to have an awesome day anyway. I know I am about to get started on mine. And the next day, guess what? My plan is the same and I will do it all over again. I will continue to write it in my journal and on my heart:

 "Today is the perfect day to have an awesome day anyway!"