I just watched the YouTube video ‘Maycember’ and I have to agree… May is the hecticness of December without all the cookies and twinkling lights. Right?!? And it’s funny, in the not laughing way, that I forget about it every single year. The kids are wound up. My schedule is oversaturated. I’m trying to juggle the most efficient way to get the To-Do List done. I’m freaking out. So I look up and I realize… Dunh Dunh Dunh…….It’s May. Sinister music playing.
I hadn’t seen the video before. But it’s perfect. Those who watch it and ‘get it’ become a new support group where we stand up and say “Hello. My name is so-and-so and it’s May.” And all of the subsequent deep sighs we exude are understood with commiserating nods of heads. It’s a group of people who understand the depth of what it means when I answer the question. “How are you?’ with “It’s May.”
Now don’t get me wrong. May is awesome in a lot of ways. It comes with beautiful fragrance in the air, gorgeous colorful flowers in bloom, anticipation of all the fun things and the fun things themselves. It comes with acknowledgments of growth. Celebrations of accomplishments. Tender goodbyes and see ya’s next year wrapped in with dripping popsicle dye all over the kids’ clothes. Wink wink. You get it. To Do: Apply stain remover on white shirt. Another thing. It’s Completion. But it comes with a whole heckuva lot more incompletion.
So. How do we align ourselves with that which has no completion? How do we align ourselves with the perpetual To-Do List of May? Capitalized. Like it has its own soul. The To-Do List in perpetuity…
My strategy this year is diving head first into the capitalization of her or him or them whatever pronoun seems fitting for you. I’m gonna name that beast and ride ‘er. I shall call her Listy. Again, parents, wink wink, right?!? Okay, so I’ll challenge my adult creativity and name her Sheila. 👍
So, the first thing Sheila and I do is lay out some ground rules. She is not allowed on the couch or up in the bed. Those are sacred places and I don’t need her opinion there. Period. The End. No scattered ‘and this’ ‘and this’ ‘and this’s’ up in mah bed when it’s time to go to sleep. I will get out of bed, write them down in my Sheila notebook and tuck her in someplace else if and when I need to.
Two. And this is the most important rule. I will celebrate with her every step of the way. The way to where you might ask. And here is again where we get real creative. I realize, like really, really REALIZE – THIS IS REALITY! – we ain’t never gonna to get there. Wherever ‘there’ might think it is. Stop it. There is no there. Sheila is eternal.
You may think it’s cliche but it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. 🙂And each step can get celebrated. I like to do this by putting a Ta-Dah! on each of Sheila’s items. My To-Do List is never going to be complete. There will always be more things to add to it. But I can celebrate the mini micro completions along the way.
Which brings us to ground rule number 3. Keep Sheila neat and tidy. I like to write at the top of my page ‘To-Do’ on the left and then ‘Ta-Dah!’ on the right. I run one version of Sheila every few weeks and I add to her until I need to transfer some in-process items to Sheila.2 or Sheila.34, depending on the day/week/year. But I make sure I cross the item off and mark the Ta-Dah! I take a moment to feel good about the completion. Maybe I even give myself a mini micro “Woo-hoo, you’re doing great!” (Check out Sandra Boynton’s Woo-Hoo! You’re Doing Great! Book. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPJWap86BRk)
The point is that I carry with Sheila and me some intentional grace and some intentional space around both her expansive abyss and her awesome inherent incrementalism. Yay stepping stones! Bit by bit we’re getting nowhere but we’re doing it with style and poise. And a whole lot of breathwork. Which I’m going to try to remember to place as numero uno on my big beautiful robust never-ending Sheila from here on out.
To-Do:
Sheila Item 23. Write Blog.
………………………………………………..……Complete. Ta-Dah!
Woo Hoo! You’re Doing Great!
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