Next Man Down
Three weeks ago today, I wrote a piece about the importance of savoring the holiday season. In the last paragraph, I included the following sentence: "I'm excited for this holiday season, but as always, I'm nervous I'll find a way to screw it up." That was a tremendously foreshadow-y quote, considering that my life was dramatically altered just hours after I published that piece. That's when my neck injury escalated, my cognitive impairment developed, and I began a multi-week journey to simply regain a sense of "normal."
I arrived back home last night after spending the week at a client site in Nebraska. I was tremendously grateful for the opportunity to get back to work after being essentially incapacitated for two weeks, and it was awesome to get myself back up and running. Fortunately, my remaining brain fog and level-9 pain subsided by Monday night, and I was able to battle through a level-5 slog for the remainder of the week. All in all, I'm so appreciative of the week I had and the work completed.
Less than 20 minutes after arriving home last night, one of my little guys vomited on me. He missed the last two days of school this week with the flu (he looks pitiful), and he's in a world of hurt.
Needless to say, we're limping into Christmas. We were supposed to spend this weekend enjoying the holiday spirit in downtown Chicago: cancelled. Their cousins were supposed to visit while I was away: cancelled. Other fun Christmas-themed events: cancelled.
We have two options:
Complain about how sour the lemons taste
Make lemonade
I don't know what the coming days will look like in the Shelton household, but we'll refocus and find different ways to create fun memories and enjoy our time together.
Is your holiday season going perfectly like a Hallmark Christmas movie? If so, soak it all in! Enjoy the good fortune. Make the most of it. And for the other 80% of you who might be living in a Lifetime Christmas movie, embrace it for whatever it is. Pivot, adjust, make the best of your "unique" opportunity. Know you're not alone.....despite what everyone else's perfect social media feed might say.
Happy pre-Christmas weekend, everyone! Hope you have an awesome day!
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