Did I leave you all on the edge of your seats waiting to hear about my sweet book’s blind dates? Or, like me, have you been running full tilt to keep up with the day to day and the last thing on your mind was something other than your own calendar and commitments? As Dr. Vanessa would say I haven’t left enough margins in my life lately for the extras…And the extras are often the things I enjoy most. Like, writing. Adding the month of December to our busy and full lives has been like having a fire hose pointed straight at our faces. I’m not sure that’s an appropriate metaphor, but it sure is the best visual I can come up with for the current situation.
Like so many of you who care for tiny humans, we have been hit hard by the worst cold and flu season since before the birth of Christ. We get one kid healthy only for another to catch the newest illness. As I type this, I have our youngest on the floor next to me snuggled close to a bowl and resting peacefully between episodes brought on by the latest GI bug her brother brought home on Tuesday. A GI bug that hit him, I might add, while I was barreling down the highway at 100km/hour gloriously thinking everything was going smoothly. There’s nothing like the sound of a child heaving in the seat behind you to really get your heart rate up.
If you follow me on social media, you know that Crummy Conversations is now available on bookshelves at Volume One Books Store in Duncan (149 Kenneth St) and at Odin Books in Vancouver (108 East Broadway). My Publisher tells me that it is ready on the virtual bookshelf worldwide, which means that you can walk into your favorite bookstore anywhere and ask them to bring it in. Once I get some of those above-mentioned margins back, I have plans to work on a one-page tool of my model that could be downloaded from my website. I also hope to offer Professional Development workshops to Educators and intend to work on presentation proposals in the New Year. In other writing news, I had an early December deadline to submit a chapter for a co-authored book that will be published in April. The book, You’ve Got This Mama; The Change Edition, is a compilation of stories from mothers finding their way through change and is intended to be an inspiring read. Writing one chapter to contribute felt like a walk in the park on the back of writing a whole book and I loved how easy and struggle-free it was. The most exciting date on my calendar for January is an appearance on the Dr. Vanessa show mid-month so stay tuned for details on when the episode will be released. Back in November I was a guest of the Shantelle Bisson podcast for her 2023 season. I was incredibly nervous during the recording, which was both video and audio. I fumbled my way through quite a few unexpected questions, so if you happen to hear that episode, make some popcorn and get ready to watch me sweat and anxiously overuse the word “ultimately”.
My little one who was tucked beside me hugging the bowl is now drinking flat ginger ale and dancing in the playroom. It’s a day later (it might be a few days later by the time I finish this) and I’m turning my attention to my holiday to-do list while keeping an eye on anyone else in my family who starts to look peaked. At this point I feel less like a tough cookie and more like a margin-less exhausted Mom of three with potential adrenal fatigue. ‘Tis the season! I saw something recently that really resonated with my current experience. The person shared how our culture often gives burnt out parents the message that they’ve put themselves in this situation so, too bad, so sad for them. As in, you chose this for yourself, so suck it up. The person I saw describing this drew a comparison between the marathon of day-in and day-out parenting to the actual running of a marathon. You know what happens at a marathon? Cheering. A whole heck of a lot of cheering. Crowds of people line the race route holding signs of encouragement like, YOU’VE GOT THIS; YOU’RE ALMOST THERE. There are also funny signs like, THIS IS A LOT OF WORK FOR A FREE BANANA, and ALL TOENAILS GO TO HEAVEN. Complete strangers yell themselves hoarse cheering for other strangers and the entire running community wants success for each other. Yes, it’s a race, but at every running event I’ve attended, the biggest cheers can be heard for the runners struggling to get to the finish line. Imagine if no one showed up at a race to cheer because the runners chose to do this hard thing and put themselves in this grueling and intense position of running a marathon? How many of them would finish? Worse still, what if as they rounded the 20km mark they got a cramp, started to walk as the fatigue hit and they subsequently wanted to quit, and just around that corner someone was silently holding a sign that read YOU CHOSE THIS. Would they feel inspired to start running again?
Parents and caregivers need people lining their lives right now with all the cheering and support they can get. It’s time for signs and noise makers and clapping till your hands hurt. Instead of hearing you chose this, we need to hear, you’ve got this. Again, and again. Visualizing this type of encouragement is what my exhaustion and I are taking into the holidays. As you navigate endless hard things this holiday season (complex family gatherings, difficult travel, constant illness, overtired and overstimulated kids), picture me holding a sign above my head that reads LOOKING SO STRONG; KEEP GOING and cheering for you until my voice cracks and my face is red. If this is your first holiday without a loved one, or in the midst of a divorce, or in a new community where you feel alone, look for the people cheering for you while you run, walk, and crawl courageously through your own race. If your current life situation feels like a marathon, then the holidays may feel like the hardest km’s in the run.
We need all the inspiration we can get right now. We need to believe we are all exceptional runners who are cheering for each other to keep moving forward. So, let’s watch for the signs and cheer loudly for one another as we run towards 2023.
Michelle