A new-fashioned form of holiday haunting

The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future gave me a visit—online.

Photo courtesy Getty Images

My life has felt a bit like Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol lately. Except instead of spirits coming to haunt me, various articles and newsletters are forcing me to reflect on my past, present, and future.

The mystery virus my daughter battled a couple weeks ago soon walloped me and Billy. Our symptoms haven’t been too severe—lingering cough, low-grade fever, upset stomach—but they’re stubborn and have lasted for a long time. Mostly, they’ve left us exhausted; we’re desperate for some rest and recuperation. At the same time, we’re warily eyeing the remainder of this jam-packed, holiday-centered month and wondering how the heck we’ll survive it.

My answer is the same as it always is: We’ll just have to power through! And I do. Or, at least, I try to. Over the past week, instead of stealing some precious downtime to nap, I’ve written and addressed holiday cards. Instead of settling down with a movie, I’ve opened up my to-do list for the zillionth time, making sure I’ve blocked off time to make cookies, order gifts, and do holiday things. And instead of asking colleagues if I can push back a deadline, I’m cramming in as much work as I can to meet my self-imposed timeline of when everything needs to be done.

I’ve written often about taking breaks, being gentle with yourself, and resting when you need to. I genuinely stand by all those things! I also tend to convince myself that those words apply to everyone else. But for me? During the hectic holiday season?! Nope. I can relax in the new year.

So, I’ve been working while coughing. I’ve been getting snippy with Billy as he makes the smart decision to rest. I’ve been feeling a little more run down each day, wondering when I’ll feel better. I’ve been powering through.

But then, the Ghost of Christmas Past appeared, in the form of an online thread about perfectionism and achievement. Many who answered the prompt reminded me of myself—people who got good grades in school, and later applied that perfectionist approach to their jobs and personal lives. 

“Perfectionism?! Perfectionism isn't enough! I need my things to be unique! Radical! Above and beyond!” wrote one commenter. After a wakeup call of working with their mother (“who is exactly like me”), they realized that “over-delivering can really overburden the person you are delivering for.”

“Whooaaaaaaa,” another commenter wrote in response. “Obviously, it can be a real joy to create experiences that go above and beyond, but sometimes that's weirdly self-serving and at the same time, obviously depleting.”

Whoa is right. I’ve always believed that my tendency to work hard and strive for perfection benefited those around me. I never really considered how it might be doing harm to others, whether by creating unrealistic expectations, an unequal playing field, or a detrimental example for my child.

Soon after, the Ghost of Christmas Present arrived. Everywhere I looked, I read something that resonated with my current experience. “Even for those who love the holidays, the pressure to perform them perfectly can lead to stress and exhaustion,” wrote Susan Shain at The New York Times. 

“There is often a mad dash around this time of year. A time squeeze. Timelines we’ve made up in our heads,” mused Alisha Ramos at Girls’ Night In. And in The Cut, Lydia Kiesling observed that, “I don’t know any parent who hasn’t recently been home with a sick kid, been sick themselves, or in some other way been reminded of the continued miserable frailty of our national human infrastructure.”

Clearly, I’m not the only one feeling exhausted by it all.

Finally came the visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future. On Friday, soccer journalist Grant Wahl, a Substack author, writer I admire, and all-around good person, collapsed and died while covering a World Cup quarterfinal match in Qatar. Just a day earlier, he’d complained about a “death rattle” cough.

Wahl, who was 49, worked up until his death, a death that brought back strong memories of my husband’s fatal collapse. I read the news about Wahl from my laptop, where I had been writing and—yes—coughing.

What am I doing? I asked myself. Haven’t I had enough wake-up calls by this point?

I realize this is all a bit dramatic. But isn’t that the goal of the Ghosts’ visitations? They’re always over-the-top. If their aim was to make me pause and take stock of my choices, they had succeeded. 

So here’s how I’m approaching the remainder of this rapidly dwindling year:

• I’m taking the next three weeks off from writing this newsletter, and will return to your inboxes on Tuesday, January 10.  (Paying subscribers will get an update before then!)

• I’m wrapping up the remaining work tasks I have on my plate, then closing my laptop until 2023. 

• I’m giving myself permission to work more slowly than I’m used to, and to deliver gifts that are good, but perhaps not great. 

• I’m leaning on childcare help and spending some quality time with Billy, just the two of us.

• I’m taking some time to think more deeply about what I want the next year to look like—not just week by week—but as a whole. What values do I want to guide me? What have the Ghosts taught me?

And I am trying to remind myself that we are still reckoning with a post-pandemic world, one that is forever changed, even if we pretend like it’s not. The truth is, we are forever changed too. As Emily Henderson recently wrote, “The biggest challenge with 2022 is that the world, all industries, and society at large are treating us like we are still in 2019. We aren’t. And we can’t go back.”

We can’t go back to the way we’ve always been doing things. The costs are too high. 

There’s a reason A Christmas Carol has been told and reimagined, again and again. It’s a story of forgiveness, of fresh starts, of remembering that human beings are people, not commodities. It offers us a smart approach to close out the year—with some serious self-reflection—and a promising way to greet the year ahead.

I hope the remainder of 2022 is kind to you, readers, and that you’re kind to yourselves. See you in 2023.

xoxo
KHG