Whoa, 2020! What a year! Seemingly overnight the world changed and we found ourselves trying to work from home in isolation, double hatting as we took care of our families while educating our kids and all the things that we loved to do screeched to a halt and along with them, our identities.
If that weren't enough, we also faced a reckoning of social inequality and racism. Now, as most humans tend to want to do, a lot of us wanted to roll up our sleeves and be part of the solution. Myself included. I wanted to throw more of me at the problem.
But what I quickly realized is that I am no good to anyone or any situation unless I have taken the time to process the change, the loss or understand the challenge in front of me.
I could feel the burnout coming and was trying to do what I always do, which is overproduce my way through it. Take on more projects and commitments. Make more promises. Do more things. But it wasn't working and then I remembered something from my childhood that my mom demonstrated to me when she felt overwhelmed and was unable to take a step forward, let alone know which direction it should be in. What we as kids called her "Blue Suitcase moments".
When I was a little girl my parents didn't have a lot of money. They were raising five kids in a little mid-western town on peanuts for salaries. Neither had been able to go to college, so there weren't many options for them to make money despite having some of the hardest work ethic of any two people I have ever known. Obviously when things got stressful, they couldn't just take a vacation to Hawaii or my mom couldn't take a few days off of work and jet off to a spa to recoup.
In the moments when my mom felt overwhelmed she had to get creative. What she would do instead was pop her best clothes into a little vintage blue suitcase, and then look at my dad and say "Jack, I am going for my drive". She'd pop that suitcase into the trunk our car and off she would go. It usually wasn't contention or a fight between her and my dad or even us that sparked her moments, often they were out of the blue, and we just knew "my drive" meant that she was going to leave the house heavy and come back a little lighter. We knew it was her time to be alone.
We as kids never wondered where she went and we never worried she wasn't going to come back, because she always did. Her moments were usually just a few hours long and they taught me three things:
One, as cliche as it sounds, if you don't put on your oxygen mask on first you aren't saving anyone. You won't be able to be fully present for those around you and you certainly won't be able to solve their problems let alone yours. Your kids will feel the weight of all the things you are feeling anyway, so take time for you to process, grieve, be sad, be angry...just be. Show them it’s ok to feel these things.
Two, it doesn't have to be fancy. It can be a simple as a drive, or a hike or a good book in the bath with the door locked. Although I've never asked her where she went, I always imagined she was driving down the country roads near our home with the windows down listening to music. Or perhaps popping by her friends house for a friendly chat and a cup of coffee without kids in tow or maybe she just went somewhere and took a nap. It doesn't matter where she went, it was her time and her time alone. Something we couldn't touch, or interrupt or break. She called them her "vacations". Now it may seem sad that all she got to do was go for car ride for a few hours, but to me looking back it was beautiful. With no money, she still found a way to escape and re-energize. She still found time for her.
Three, that when a mother takes time for themselves it doesn't mean they are running away. My mom was actually always running towards us every single time. The strains of being a young working mom of five with very little money was actually what was pushing her away from us. In the moments when she left, she was actually recognizing that she needed to take the time to step back and reframe her life and whatever problems she faced, so she could clear a faster path home to us.
It can feel really selfish to take your own Blue Suitcase Moment, but it is the most giving thing you can do for yourself and those around you.
As an extrovert Covid hit me really hard in 2020. I was used to traveling the world and surrounding myself with new people to recharge. Suddenly, I was at home surrounded by the same four people all day and all night and to be honest sometimes it felt crushing. So instead of trying to overproduce my way out of things, I decided to take that lesson from my childhood and take some moments of my own. I started solo hiking and took a few overnights away, albeit a bit fancier than my mother's drive, they served the same purpose. What I learned was that it was ok to be alone with myself and that I actually didn’t mind my own company until I was ready to come home and unpack the blue suitcase.
