Finding the Happy.

It’s 12 days until Christmas. I keeping trying to find the happy of the season. I try singing. Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la…. Yup, I’m still not feeling it.

There is a lot of noise this Christmas. Also some shouting and that box of Lindt chocolates keeps yelling my name. I am ignoring that plea for attention. I’m trying to fit into my PJ’s before Christmas Day.

For our family, Christmas is definitely about the food and the chocolate and certainly pairing of the “spirits”. In preparation for the calories of Christmas, I thought I should practice some self-discipline. I decided to give up having milk in my coffee.

After one day, I didn’t notice any change. Maybe giving up milk wasn’t enough so I also gave up breakfast and started just having “brunch”. Fancier fitness programs refer to this as “intermittent fasting” but really, it’s brunch with dinner being 8 hours later. I am unclear how whole books have been written on this topic and become best sellers. Here’s the summary…..eat less and eat less often. No need to buy the book. You can thank me later.

Anyways, this little tweak to my lifestyle was made in preparation of Christmas. I want to have my own little COVID success and being able to fit my PJ’s seemed attainable. I’ve been envious of all the COVID success stories floating around.

“Look at me, I’ve taken up pottery and now I am an international success doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing! “ or “Look at me, I lost my job but now I have time to do yoga and eat avocado and I’m 30 pounds lighter”. Go team. I grew out my hair and became a connoisseur of boxed wine. I see where there is room for improvement.

I wanted something to change for me that was more positive than what I had “before”. I want my own post pandemic story that is kind of fabulous and fun. I just feel my path forward is a little blurry at the moment. I think I might be a late bloomer.

My new “brunch” routine allowed me to lose four pounds. Then I stalled. I was hoping to hit at least 5 pounds. I looked at what else I could do. I thought about giving up my glass of wine but I still worry about my cholesterol. I decided to shave my legs instead. Incredible. I’ve now lost a total of 6 pounds.

Change is incremental. Tiny grains of sand eventually make a beach. I’m just trying to build a new sandbox and finding that tough. Actually, I’m finding a number of things kind of tough. Namely finding happiness. I try to look for happiness but often, I just seem to find wave after wave of unrelenting sadness. I can’t seem to get past the grieving on what “was”. I’m still stuck.

On good days, I can brush away the tears and push all those sad feelings back in the box. On my not so good days, the tears keep rolling and they don’t stop. I try everything. I clench my jaw, tighten my face and I will my soul to stop feeling sad but the ache is flamed and the pain grows hot. My stomach churns and I wage a war with my inner self begging my emotions to stand down.

I am a bit like a grenade. I keep stuffing the hurt, the pain and the shame into the box but the box is getting full and starting to overflow. I fight with myself. I berate myself for not being able to financially pivot the way others do and have. I harbour a sense of failing because I didn’t anticipate a pandemic and hadn’t yet strengthened the business to be more diverse.

First off….. did anyone predict a world pandemic? Surely I can’t be the only one that didn’t get the memo. This is the irony. I am beating myself up over something I had no control over. The Titanic had a similar fate.

I had a plan. We had just recovered from the last recession and in four years, tripled our revenues and were working towards that state of diversification. I wasn’t blind, I just ran out of time. The rationale falls on deaf ears. My sensible side isn’t getting through to my inner mean girl.

I know these feelings are in response to nine months of weirdness thanks to COVID 19. I am triggered with how many things seem so wrong and unfair. I am enormously frustrated with COVID convenience, COVID chaos and COVID confusion. There is one game, a million different rules and so many people playing different versions. It’s all utterly confusing and deeply distressing.

The casualties are mounting and I struggle with the selection process of who gets through the gates, whether that be physically, emotionally or financially.

Looking around, I see widening gaps of disproportion. Seniors silently dying in solitude, business owners holding onto the ledge with bloodied finger nails, social disconnection that is fracturing and so many layers of duplicity and hypocrisy that I can hardly breathe.

Yes, the news of the vaccine is fantastic but it’s not for everyone, not yet. We still have a ways to go.

It is not fair to criticize. I’ve searched Google and truth be told, there are not many handbooks on “how to handle a pandemic”. I honestly believe that people did their best in the middle of the storm. What I do wish is that as we move forward, we develop some guiding principles that become foundations to our next stages of decision making. I am not naive. Governments can’t make decisions that will benefit everyone. They can only work to make better decisions as time goes by. It is an imperative to look at unintended consequences as a result of taking too quick of an action that might give way to double standards and erode social codes of conduct.

After nine months, I wish that there was more room in the conversation to ask questions and say out loud “help me understand what makes you confident that this is the right path forward?”

Guiding principles would be helpful to understanding decisions. Why do some industries and businesses get the green light while others are still locked? After all this time, is there room to ask how we might do this better moving forward without being accused of causing concern of conspiracy? There is no denying the many tragic impacts to the pandemic. The opioid crisis cannot just be a “drug” problem; surely there is more when we look honestly at the casualties. What happens when people are broken and feel that there is no where to turn? The stigma of not being able to cope is enough to want to crawl into the closet of shame. I wonder what means are used to help manage the pain. The numbers beg us to pay attention to the whole story. COVID is not the only headline.

I hear a great deal about “mental health“. “We need more mental health“. Yes. Yes we do. Here’s my question. How do we make that available? Counselling is terrific if you have extended health benefits which is taken away when the job is lost. Is there a way to look at how we stretch those government pockets to carry over benefit plans? I feel frustrated that the resources that people could use have been either taken away in the waves of pandemic job loss or worse, never there in the first place. A social question is “do those that need, have access to what they need?” This question isn’t just for those that fall below a mathematical threshold for income, this question is on behalf of all those who don’t have access for whatever the reason. Just ask a small business owner about their benefit plan.

Deep sigh.

So this is it. I wonder if we need to feel pain so that we can move forward with better clarity and defined purpose to change our conditions and that of others. Pain hurts. It hurts even more when it is ignored. What happens if we name our pain and we say it out loud. What would happen if instead of stuffing my pain into a box, I let it out to and let it wash over me. What if pain without confine became a way to rise with a deeper sense of compassion, connection and commitment to live a better life. Maybe shared pain becomes our bridge to joy and one another.

I have felt adrift and I am angry at myself that my healing process is taking longer than I want. “Just get over it” is a bumper sticker I would buy except that I’m not just “getting over it”. I am feeling things on deeper levels and working to gain courage to live life more vibrantly. I want a story of adventure and up until now, the plot has been a little thin and as a main character, I could go a little deeper. Giving up milk with my coffee and having “brunch” seems lame.

I’m getting there. I used to just see walls that confined me and stopped me from going further. For months, I have sat with my back to the wall, banging my head. This week, I chose to look left, and suddenly I saw a door. I haven’t been enclosed by four walls, I have been restricted by my own perceptions. Progress.

My hurt, my pain caused me to stop dead in my tracks. I’m embarrassed to admit this. I never thought I would one that would take so many months to find a door. I had to wallow but now my pain is my fuel to lay aside my hurt to recreate a life where I live with more passion, more joy and I never let the “other stuff” take me away from being with those that I adore.

That’s what it was. So many years I spent working on work that took me away from the fun. I said “no” more times than I said “yes”. I put work before almost everything and now, everything I missed was really the core of happiness.

This Christmas, what brings me joy and a sense of happy isn’t found under the tree, it is the people I love who have a place in my heart. Maybe part of my COVID craziness is that I crave connection with those who I miss. Am I the only one who watches a movie and marvel when the characters shake hands?

I miss the hugging, the touching, the laughing, the connections of moments that create memories that make me laugh and allow me to reminisce with love and return to a state of happiness.

Today I share all this because we all know someone who wishes that they had more days. They are counting in weeks and and months rather than years. I marvel at their bravery; to fight for each day and every moment and understand the value is in the living no matter the cost.

That’s pain. Saying goodbye to someone who you love with all your heart and more. Pain is wishing you could take their place. Why? Why them? Why take someone who is so good, so fantastic and worthy of so many more memories. It is incredibly unfair. I can only stand in the wings and be humbled by their bravery to live each moment with courage and love. I wonder if the best people are chosen to leave early so that we are reminded to live more thoughtfully and passionately in their honour.

COVID has brought loss. I would hate to move to comparative loss of who “lost” more. Suffice to say that the world has shifted and we all have scars. If we can move through the pain, we can reach joy and maybe even attain happiness.

I share these thoughts in case you too are hiding the hurt and it’s starting to spill over. I used to think that being brave was pretending it was all ok. Maybe being brave is falling apart to let things go; those pieces of us that we no longer need to find a new way of living happy. Sometimes it takes time to figure out which pieces don’t fit anymore.

I close with sending you love. Tons of love to carry you over the Christmas holidays and into the New Year. May you find your happy with someone that loves you so much, that you feel whole and a part of the bigger picture that brings you peace.

See you on the other side – may 2021 be the year of “more” in the best possible way.

Shelley