A Short Winter’s Nap

Today I woke up quite tired with a headache, dragging. It wasn’t a holiday party the night before or a Christmas virus. I was just tired. I have a friend who believes strongly in naps, arguing that the body sometimes just needs to rest and listening to it is a true gift. I thought about it.  I had done all my mom-stuff of the morning. You know. The mental load we all talk about. Packed up and sent my kids to school with reasonable lunches and a smile and their holiday snacks for the class party and plans for teachers’ gifts tomorrow, making mental notes to not forget our loyal bus driver or the admin who greets our family with a grin every day. I emailed a teacher to let them know I’d be scooping one kiddo early for a doctor’s appointment, and made sure that kid knew too, and would have time to finish her research paper before practice. I tucked away the white board we’d mapped it out on the night before, worrying that she hasn’t learned enough about paragraph structure and made another mental note to make sure we were working on vocabulary at home. I messaged my co-coach about basketball practice to see if our plan for the night was good and wondered what dinner would let everyone eat at the weird times they would have to eat with all the activities of a Thursday before Christmas Break. More mental notes. I wished I had snagged more veggies at the store. I felt guilty that I hadn’t grabbed a sub job this week, but signed up for a week of teaching in January. I felt a brief surge of excitement for my ‘work’ at home, ready to start formatting the next children’s book, opening the frequented tabs to help learn this new process.

All of this felt heavy in my head though, this morning. A very typical mom morning, but sometimes, as all parents know, the scattered sticky notes across our minds just make a person feel cluttered or cranky or just…tired.

So. I did a very luxurious thing. I crawled into bed for an hour. I started over. My brain still traveling its usual circuits over and over, I wondered if this too was a fruitless waste of time, to even try to rest. In the quiet, my mind drifted to the horror of Rob Reiner and his wife’s murder, and how unbelievably sad it was. I thought of the many awful traumas families face, whether in the public eye or not. I avoided my phone, my mind replaying the clip my newsfeed showed me of the latest gunmen with rifles shooting mercilessly, one loud shot after another, at a crowd. My worst nightmare. I thought of the emails from Sandy Hook parents, whose kids should be grown now. The Brown University shooting. How scared my daughter is of lockdowns and guns, even with me shielding them from the news. I tried to shove those thoughts from my mind, circling back to my to-do list for the day. One last day before the kids were home for break. I told myself I should get up and start, rather than trying to get some quick sleep.

And then I found this one tiny moment of grounding. Our new pup, Albus moved from the corner of the bed, found his way to right beside me, wagged his adorable fluffy tail, and flopped down with a sigh. Happy to just be closer. I smiled. And closed my eyes, mimicking his sigh.

Remembering that shoving emotions away doesn’t work, I tried again.

I called Fear forward in my mind. Hey, I told her. It’s a lot. You’re not supposed to take in this much. Our brains aren’t meant to process it all constantly. Every news story of horror. Murders and shootings and children dying every day. It is scary and it is real. But we are going to take a break from it, okay? I imagined holding this feeling as I would my own child, with love and a sense of “I got you.” You need a break.

Sadness wandered in. All the loss, heavy in her arms. I know. I told her. We feel it more at Christmas. It’s bigger. We miss them. We notice all the reminders. We wish for them. It’s okay to feel that. I held her, like I have my kids when they simply need comfort. It’s okay to feel.

I woke up about an hour later.

Not necessarily lighter. But better.

The weight shifted. More space for gratitude. Heating tea in our kitchen as I regathered my sense of the day, I found that little flip of thankfulness in my heart looking at our beautiful evergreen tree. The traditions that made our next few weeks loud and chaotic and full. Is it sometimes too much? Yep. But also. How lucky we are for joyful hearts and too many gifts and bouncing kids and surrounding family and nutty friends and a house that smells like oranges and cloves simmering on the stove.

For so many of us, holidays are a time of feels. That Christmas, a delightful movie on Netflix (which Bryce has watched 9043 times this month), has a quote: “I always think that Christmas is a bit like an emotional magnifying glass. If you feel loved and happy, Christmas will make you feel even happier and more loved. But if you feel alone and unloved, the magnifier gets to work and makes all those bad things bigger and worse.” The movie turns out to be about how feeling both is kind of ….life, ending with each quirky family -each facing their own very real challenges- not finding their picture perfect ever-after, but rather their own version of happiness, gratitude, and a literal village to fill in the holes of grief, loss, or hardship.

I needed to remind myself this morning – Christmas or whatever winter holiday you might find yourself in …. It may not be perfect. In fact, it most certainly isn’t. It may be stressful; it may be sad; it may be unsure. We’re all carrying something, our feelings coming to us with something in their arms. Some heavier than others. It’s okay to feel.

I hope you find a time to nap. Or read. Or watch your favorite movie. Nothing else in front of you.

I hope you find a moment with your dog that puts you in the present – a moment that is surprisingly simple and good.

I hope you have a corner of your home or your city or your room that gives you joy.

I hope you massage your brain and tell it to rest a minute. To take a break.

I hope your tea or coffee mug is warm in your hands, and an evergreen outside looks particularly green against the brown landscape, birds playfully swooping and dipping around it.

I hope you give yourself permission to feel.

I hope you give yourself grace for stress; give yourself humor to laugh the little stuff off; give yourself time to grieve; give yourself rituals or moments that ground your feet to the earth.

I hope you find an hour of your preferred noise level, whether it be the quiet of a calm room or the clinking dishes and chatter of a noisy house, or both.

I hope you let yourself find comfort by a gentle fireside or the warmth of loved ones.

This season is pretty funny if you take a step or two back. It’s got a bearded jolly man around every corner. Very specific music – some of which is lovely and some of which is so weird (Grandma got run over by a reindeer?? What the…?). Black and white movies and belief in magic. Ribbons tied to anything stationary. Live trees with old knick knacks hung on branches shoved into corners of houses. Candles coming out of our ears. Houses lit up and blinking on every street. Berries and holly and too many crafts. Traditions from a baby born in a manager to enduring oil lamps to socks nailed to a mantle in the hopes for a surprise on Christmas morning. If you were visiting earth for the first time, you might look at the holidays and think….huh. This is….something.

It is.

But this morning, I am reminded I love our weird little December something.

May I suggest a short winter’s nap,

so that you might feel the same.