Even if it's just for a quick cup of coffee and commiseration in the middle of preparing for an influx of guests or twenty minutes on the phone, take a drink from that well of affection and friendship and support.
Make time for the special and the rest can wait.
It's the turning of the year. Days getting longer from here on out.
Find yourself a little sun or a sunlamp today and avoid that Seasonal Affective Disorder. (Yeah, yeah, you Aussies just quit laughin' will ya?)
Mmmm sunshine.
Happy Discardia, gang!
Ze Frank's got a good idea for you – acknowledge that you're made up of many selves with different moods.
Accept that you are who you are, in the mood you're in today. Recalibrate to the current baseline and try to do the things that today's me is best at.
That thing, even that little dumb thing you did a long time ago? Today's a good day to say you're sorry. Flowers optional, but often wildly appreciated.
If you don't want to dredge up old badness, instead make this Appreciation Day and be nice to that person you're feeling a little guilty over.
Two things today:
– Do the mundane things that must be done before December 31st.
For me that's figuring out submitting receipts from health expenses for the past year for my Flexible Spending Plan fund. Always odd how this, with it's great potential for a reimbursement check, gets pushed to the end of my list. Tackle your bureaucracies and take whatever rewards that brings you – even if it's just the relief of being done with the chore.
– Think about an emotional loose end that you could complete.
Perhaps it's having watched the brilliant film Hiroshima Mon Amour this past week that has me musing on the past and that amazing balancing act between the fear of forgetting (and repeating) our horrors & mistakes and the necessity of forgetting in order to live life unparalyzed.
Today would be a perfect day to take a break with a dumb movie you love or watching cartoons or telling knock knock jokes with little kids or going drinking with a big gang of friends dressed in Santa outfits.
😛
Rather than spending a lot of energy building up to an encounter you expect to be tense, go into it with an open mind and be a bit more kind yourself.
Okay, so maybe you and that relative argue every year when you see each other, but maybe this time you could avoid it if you don't spend days in advance practicing your arguments in your head.
Spend less of your time bathing in emotions that exhaust you.
Be gracious.
Forgive.
And if the other person won't melt the ice on their side, just give them (and you) some distance and spare yourselves the scene.
Gosh, are you getting swept up in seasonal social events too? Hope you're having fun and keeping a light heart as you bustle about.
Just remember to drink enough water and try to get a full night's sleep whenever you can.
Also, if you can snatch 20 or 30 minutes alone time now and then to just read some fiction or otherwise kick back without accomplishing anything, do! I find it can charge my batteries enough to get happily through the next round of putting on fancy clothes & uncomfortable shoes.
Happy holidays!
Write a letter to someone you care about.
Take a gift to a friend or neighbor.
Listen to someone who needs to be heard.
Get out of your own head and put your good energy out into the world.
If you have to let go of everything else to get a good hold on this, do it.
Care. Madly, passionately.
Be yourself. There's no such thing as "larger than life"; be fully alive and present and true and it doesn't get more important than that.
Laugh. Loud, long, often.
Smile. And get other people to do it too.
Be kind. Randomly, bewilderingly, unexpectedly, sweetly.
I'll miss you, Leslie. But you won't stop being an inspiration.
Discardia 