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May and June are months filled with abundance. As spring bursts forth, rains methodically wash streets and sidewalks. They rinse winter’s residue on the earth and prune awakening trees. Meanwhile, we confront calendars crowded with demands and opportunities. The clutter itself is an invitation to stress that can overwhelm and undermine all the blessings that these new beginnings and heralded endings represent.
This spring, my husband and I will celebrate the graduations of three grandchildren (one each from elementary school, middle school and high school), Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, and the annual youth exodus for summer programs. We will also mark returns from college of two older grandkids, spring concerts in separate school districts, dance recitals, and award ceremonies. Add in lacrosse and softball games. This year we have no weddings or bar/bat mitzvot, but we do commemorate our own wedding anniversary and those birthdays that fall in May and June. In other words, it is a busy time of year that can easily slip from being a period of serial joys into one of oppressive burdens. Add in wardrobe changes, garden planting, and bike tune-ups (for those of us who live in more seasonal locations), and the second quarter of the year can get stressful.
I’ve thought a lot about celebrating, even written about it, yet again find myself reviewing guidelines for preserving good will, gratitude, joy and, above all, relationships loaded with love, as we move into this busy time of year. Here are seven tips to staying sane and centered so that the season can bring satisfaction instead of annoyance, happy surprises instead of frustrating disturbances, and closer connections to those you love rather than resentment born of the perception that their needs are intruding upon your own.
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Source: Geralt/PixabayMake a comprehensive list of tasks and events that confront you during the next two months. Write each item on a post-it, the large and small, the major and minor. Remember, this is a time to mark passages but also to change wardrobe, plant for the summer, and swap out blankets on your beds. Then sort your post-its three ways: First, two rows: those activities that must be done at specific times and those whose scheduling can occur at your discretion. Second, three sections: those that are essential, desirable, and discretionary. Third, those that require high, medium or minimal resources in time, money and energy (yes, that last is nine buckets, bins, or clusters). Contemplate your lists. Take photos of them. Sleep on them; let them sink into your unconscious.
- Prioritize your own resources — time, money and energy. To some extent, you can trade off among them, perhaps hiring someone to take debris to the dump or deciding to use paper goods (recyclable, I hope) to convert dinner into a picnic. When you spend an hour with an ailing relative or practicing yoga, what happens to your energy? What trade-offs are most valuable to you? Which are most essential in your giving to others? How much time, money and energy do you need to meet your own needs? Can you think of creative swaps? If you have a spouse or partner who is also involved in the celebrations, how do they prioritize resources? What must you do to remain available to or coordinated with him or her?
- Identify calendar conflicts. It is impossible to attend a school concert in one town, a soccer game in another, and an important business meeting in a third at the same time. Look at those events that take place at specific times (as opposed to those you control, like washing your car), and note conflicts, perhaps with colored markers. Imagine consequences of making the various choices.
- Be gracious when you are left out of an invitation. Decisions regarding guest lists can have multiples bases. Those involving an expensive catered affair, like a wedding, differ from those limited by space, such as tickets to a graduation. Be aware of how excruciatingly difficult a host or hostess may find the task of limiting a guest list and, if you are not included, allow yourself to honor a need of your own during the time when the event is taking place. Offer yourself a special treat — a day at a museum or on your bike, time spent daydreaming in a hammock, reading a novel or lunching with an old friend. Do not allow a narcissistic injury to sap your energy or anger at your crowded calendar to be displaced onto someone who had to create a guest list.
- Be creative in generating alternative ways to mark a moment. If you cannot be in a distant city to celebrate Mothers’ Day or Fathers’ Day, organize an email exchange or an alternate date to be together or another way to say “I love you”. There are so many ways to say, “I am grateful that you are in my life”. Select one that will resonate with the person you aim to honor. Throughout 2017, I wrote about 52 different ways to say "I Love You", one each week, on this very blog.
- Limit stress. Remember that giving can be a joy, a chance to share, and definitely need not be a burden. You may choose to scale down the number of events you can reasonably attend, how elaborately you engage in them, how costly they become to you, how much detail you must monitor, how much time you need to leave for transportation. We recently understood that spending an extra night at our destination eliminates all the worry about making air or rail connections and encountering traffic, allowing us to be more relaxed for the actual event the next morning.
- Identify the honoree. Who is this event truly about? What are you celebrating and why? While “showing up” is a powerful way to show love, other ways can also send messages and sometimes those messages can be louder. Here’s where swapping out time, money and energy can be most useful. Sometimes, a simple handwritten note will do the job.
Enjoy your season, your celebrations. Remember that sweet spot between stretching so that your muscles feel used, even challenged, and that which causes the elasticity to snap. Keep yourself in that zone. So what if dinner one night is cereal and berries? If you do miss a softball rain-date? If you need to renew that library book online rather than return it in person? Are you honoring your own needs? Those of the people closest to you? Sharing moments that matter that will never come again? Try on the various lenses; I hope they will lead you to peace, pride, and even more gratitude.
Copyright 2018 Roni Beth Tower
