Busy season(s)
They exist in work and in life, but you can't conflate the two.
In litigation, you learn to accept the unknowns. However, you always know one thing: the end of the year will be insane. Plaintiffs at their tipping point in discovery decide they want to settle their cases before the holidays. Mediators try to squeeze in “one more round” of negotiations. Businesses want risk off their ledgers and judges want old cases off their dockets. And of course, they all want it during the 15 business days in December, while you’re trying to display your Most Festive Self through a barrage of holiday events and obligations.
Many professions have busy seasons. Accountants, for example, disappear for several months a year. Families and friends accept their absence as an annual cycle to mourn the start of and celebrate the end of. Even if you are unhappy about busy season, you power through. You sacrifice. You spring into action and compartmentalize away the other pieces of your life, because it’s temporary and for a good cause. I guess. Getting paid is a good cause, or at the very least, worth justifying some changes to your behavior.
But would you feel the same if it wasn’t for work? What happens when your life has a busy season? Are you supposed to tackle it with the same commitment?
I asked myself these questions right before Thanksgiving. Just days before my favorite holiday, I felt an unusual sense of frantic dread. See, I am neck deep in my personal busy season—from Halloween through Hanukkah—which looks like this:
Halloween is the children’s Super Bowl. Apparently, it now involves two weeks of events before Halloween. Multiple costumes are required. My husband’s birthday is also on Halloween, so I must find a way to celebrate him without eclipsing their fun.
In early November, the New Jersey Teacher’s Convention closes school for a long weekend. With no childcare, this is typically the time to take a vacation. We went to Walt Disney World, which was more of a pilgrimage than a vacation.
I host Thanksgiving, because it’s my Super Bowl.
Right around the bend, my daughter’s birthday is December 1. Until you attempt to meet the expectations of small children with whimsical and fleeting notions of what makes them happy, you have no idea what a heavy lift this is.
Finally, eight nights of Hanukkah drop like a surprise Beyonce album. The Jewish calendar doesn’t match up to ours, so each year, Hanukkah wreaks a different level of chocolate-and-perpetual-present-fueled havoc on our overstimulated family. One time, it fell over Thanksgiving Weekend and Hazel’s birthday. When we’re lucky, it comes closer to Christmas and we get a minute to breathe.
Across seven weeks, I prepare for three major holidays, two school closures, and two birthdays. And until now, my busy seasons at work and home would collide in an apocalyptic clash of business and personal that would almost always result in me getting sick, because illness is the friend who never misses the party.
Given my recent career change, I thought this year would be different. I have no high-stakes mediations. No dockets to watch for surprises. I have great control over my schedule and more autonomy than ever. But as I divulged upon leaving my corporate job in September, I am a person in constant motion, demonstrably allergic to rest.
Trying to redefine myself in the midst of my busiest time is throwing me off kilter in ways I did not expect.
Without the counter-balance of my old tasks to worry about, I approached this season with the highest personal expectations I’ve ever set: Halloween needs spooky baked goods; Thanksgiving dinner has to be served on China; Hazel’s birthday has to have custom party favors. I treated these trivial plans like Hamilton’s wartime dissertations, anxious with passion, *like I’m running out of time.* Everything else fell by the wayside. My workouts suffered. My writing sucked. Forget about sleep; I’m bad at that, anyway. I recreated a level of intensity I am accustomed to; instinctively, I filled myself back to capacity, because that’s the way I know how to exist.
Perception is a bitch. Behind all this toiling, deep insecurity brewed. If I am less busy in business, am I worth less? Will people still respect my time? Do they expect more from “this side” of me now? Will they judge me harder for dropping the ball? After setting my Thanksgiving tablescape, I sat angry at my computer, ashamed of these questions and disappointed I’d found new ways to stress when my life is objectively less stressful than before.
Right then, I received an email. It was a reminder for my town’s five-mile Turkey Trot, just a few days away. Last year, I trained for weeks and wrote about it here. But in the midst of this year’s busy season, it wasn’t even on my radar. I hadn’t run more than two miles in months and wasn’t registered, but the email felt like a slap across the face. I thought, you’re not ready, but you also can’t keep doing what you’re doing.
I ran the race faster than before, proving more to myself about balance than fitness.
Busy seasons exist in work and life, but they are not the same. Being busy at work is a challenge. Being busy in life is a privilege. Conflating that privilege with obligation sucks the joy from special moments and defeats the purpose of working hard to make them memorable. It also discounts what you can accomplish without weeks of preparation, obsessing, and sacrifice.
Thanksgiving is delicious without fresh flowers. Birthdays are special without balloon arches. Seasons begin, and they end. We can do great things without giving our everything.
The little things
My favorite poet, Kate Baer, just released her new book, And Yet. Her prose is stunning. My heart dropped when I read the second poem, which encapsulates the spirit of Our Tiny Rebellions in full. Even if you do not consider yourself a poetry person, I insist you rethink.
Also
I read:
What Is It This Time? – The Cut
Billionaires, Why Can’t We Quit You? – The Atlantic
NYC’s 2022 Eater Award Winners – Eater NY
This is the top – or is it? – This Is The Top **I am so incredibly proud of my husband for launching his newsletter on Substack. Please read and subscribe!**
I bought:
The wildest mesh rhinestone cami from Anthropologie. Don’t panic—I have no intention of baring my midriff at your holiday party. I’m thinking it will look awesome on top of a slip dress or sweater.
I listened to:
ILLENIUM’s Remix of Anti-Hero. Love it.