Holidaze

Before Thanksgiving: My pernil is seasoned and ready for cooking. The Christmas tree went up this weekend.

I’m still trying to figure out side dishes for thanksgiving dinner.

I am counting the days until I can sleep in for 4 DAYS IN A ROW!

It’s the start of the holidays.

This is also the time of year I start to hear a lot of grumbling from clients about how difficult it is to get everything done. I remember when I first became a mom and I read a quote from Drew Barrymore that resonated…. “I was raised in a generation where it was all ‘Women can have it all’ and I don’t think you can. I think something falls off the table. The good thing is that the things that the things that stay on the table become so much more important.” I have become a better sport over the years about not being able to do everything. My kids each get a request for their favorite food items and I will make them. If they request something that’s going to be super time consuming, I’ll ask them if they want to help or if they’d like to pick something else. It’s an opportunity to connect instead of do it myself and risk becoming resentful that it’s caused a problem in getting other things done.

I talk a lot with my clients about not offering to do something they may be resentful for. How often have you offered to do something that you think the person on the receiving end wouldn’t take you up on and does? That sucks. It always turns into resentment. Yet, you offered it. You were seemingly even ready to do it, so why are you mad now?

I got a call from one of my best friends the other day. Her mother died a few months ago. She and her mother were super close and this was the first Thanksgiving she would spend without her mom. She called crying because her boyfriend offered to go down to her mom’s house to help her clean it up and get it ready to sell. Only he showed up and was mad at her because she didn’t know exactly what she wanted him to do. The truth is, she invited him there to BE WITH HER and provide support, not that she actually was counting on him to DO anything. Her boyfriend ended up getting angry that my friend was not in a good mood and left her there alone. She was so much more upset after this conflict than she was before she asked for help. Her boyfriend’s resentment of her asking him to help could have been solved by him saying no to begin with. Now on top of the sadness of a holiday without a loved one for the first year, she was upset that he couldn’t just be there for her. This same friend was the one who showed up for me when I needed her. Not to do anything (although she really ended up doing a lot… she knew I was too stressed out to ask her what to do, so she did what she could). But ultimately what stands out to me was the fact that she was there and present to be my shoulder to cry on. And let me tell you, I cried a lot.

How often do you just show up? How often do you ask people to show up for you? Do you offer to do things you don’t want to do and then get snappy? Or do you really think of what you would be comfortable doing and offer only that? I hope it’s the latter, because that is the kind of help that doesn’t have bad juju attached to it.

I ended up listening to my friend and we talked about what really happened with her boyfriend. It turns out the issue wasn’t a new one (spoiler: it usually isn’t). I encouraged her to get vulnerable and tell him that she had just needed him there because this first holiday without her mom is really a hard one and she just wanted him there with her, to provide moral support. It led to a good conversation in which she told him that she only wanted him to come help her if he really wanted to. That it’s much better for him to say no if he doesn’t think it’s logistically possible or would put him out to go. She told him to not say yes to things he would be resentful about her taking him up on. It led to some understanding and vulnerability between them. That understanding and vulnerability is the glue that brings relationships together.

This year I felt like I just wanted to love on all of my friends who I knew the holidays would be hard for. I reached out to some friends who had lost family members this year and it would be the first holiday without them. I really wanted to do it. I did it knowing that I might need to lend some emotional support and I felt well enough resourced to do that too.

So my loves, please take care of yourselves during this busy holiday season. Only commit to what you really feel you want to do. I am allowing myself to say no to all of the secret santa shit (I am an overloaded mom too busy buying stuff for my kids, nevermind people I don’t know so well). I have given myself permission to slowly pick out one generic gift every week to have on hand to give someone that I feel inclined to gift something. It’s ok that I can’t do a deep dive into a super personal special gift. I know I don’t need that myself and I certainly don’t have the bandwith to offer to others, either.

That’s me taking care of me.

Now you take care of you. What is that going to look like?