After-Holiday
Blues
“Put
your hair up in a bun, drink some coffee, and handle it.”
New
Girl
Anybody
feeling the after-holiday blues? Has all the hustle and bustle let the helium
out of your balloon? When you think about the next holiday coming up—Christmas—do
you just want to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over your head? I know
some of you are charging ahead; kicking down the gate to get going. But many of us
are feeling deflated. Holiday blues is a real thing. I can’t say exactly what
brings it on—maybe the let-down after having so much fun, or the let-down after
your dreams of a perfect holiday went down the drain, or the let-down when you
realize how much work is waiting for you as soon as you step into your place of
employment. Whatever the reason, some of us feel like someone kicked us in the
gut this post-Thanksgiving Monday morning.
There
are some ways to combat post-holiday blues and none of them involve crawling
back under the covers. This is a good time to recognize what you are feeling
and just be okay with feeling it. Whatever it is you don’t want to do, do it
anyway. As Jeff Fisher says, “Discipline is doing what you really don’t want
to do…” Amelia Earhart put it this way, “The most effective way to do it
is to do it.” Even Dr. Phil chimed
in: “Anyone can do something when they want to. Really successful people do
things when they don’t want to.” (Quotes from Samantha Engman; “30 Quotes for Those
Post-Vacation Blues” August 29,2017)
Yesterday I went
to a celebration of life service for my friend Ethel, who died just before
Christmas last year from Covid. As her sons said, she was a “force of nature”
for all 97 years of her life. Sitting there, listening to people recount times
with Ethel and tell how she influenced their lives, made me think a lot about
how one person can touch everyone they meet in such a positive way. It wasn’t
like she set out to do that—it wasn’t her mission in life to inspire people. It
just happened because she didn’t allow herself to wallow in her woes--and like everyone else, she had them. She was,
in fact, an incredible human being with a tremendous lust for life, who simply looked
adversity in the face, pulled up her big-girls, and went on.
Helen
Keller said, “Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can
never do anything wise in this world.” But sometimes, it’s hard, isn't it? Here’s my
final quote—the one I most need to hear this morning—it’s from Maya Mendoza: “Don’t
let a bad day make you feel like you have a bad life.” So, wallow just a
little, and then pull up your big-girls and go. Life is waiting for you.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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