I came across this quick blurb in our local hospital’s newsletter. It was a small article about stress and holiday-related stress and ways to avoid it or dissipate any anxious feelings surrounding the upcoming holidays. I didn’t think much of it except that it didn’t pertain to me because I never experience stress around the holidays and to be quite honest, I never really understood why or how people did.
And then I realized that this year, for the first time in my life, I am experiencing major anxiety about Thanksgiving. You see, we are traveling to see my family. I’m already anxious about air travel, which is exacerbated by the stressors of having a toddler and all of his belongings and necessities to contend with as well. It is a lot to think about and deal with all at once! I was telling a friend about how anxious I was feeling and about trying to calm myself down, she sent me a link later on to https://shamanbotanicalscbd.com/about-hemp/ and told me to check it out just in case these feelings come up again and I have a need to mitigate them, which was very sweet of her to do.
Our trip is a full week away and we are already being pulled in several different directions. My parents are divorced and quite clearly want to spend alone time with us and our son. I can’t fault them for that. But what I can fault them for is for making life more complicated and stressful than it already will be for us. I understand that divorce is a massive thing to go through and for some couples, it affects them for the rest of their lives, but we have to think of our child first, despite the fact that they want to see him when THEY want to. I wish back then that there was a law firm like Peters And May they could have gone to, maybe there would have been a better outcome. It seems like the Baby Boom generation conveniently forgot what it was like to have small children along with all of the nuances and quirks of daily life. The mundane and uninteresting is met with fierce tenacity if a young child is taken out of routine.
Which leads me to my next sticking point of anxiety. We are traveling two timezones away. Not only will our daily routine be greatly disrupted by travel itself, but now we are met with the usual back-and-forth of which person has the best (strongest? loudest?) opinion of how we should parent our child. We have made this trip a couple of times now with Boo, and each time our pediatrician gives us the same advice. In his words, “if you will be gone for two weeks or longer, change his time. If you are gone 10 days or less, keep him on our time.” We always follow his advice. Much to the dismay of my family.
If we don’t change his time for the duration of our visit, that means we are effectively switching everyone else’s time into ours. You would think that as the visitors, our hosts and hostesses would happily accommodate. Sometimes this happens, other times it does not. What it almost always means is that there will inevitably be an argument with at least one person in my family about if we choose to readjust my son’s circadian rhythm.
I’ve never worried this much for a visit and the worry that I do have I can usually brush aside. What worries me most this year is that we will be getting together for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I have very fond memories of family dinners and I love the smells, conversations and fun of preparing for this festive meal. I worry that since we are visiting during such a big holiday, we will be met with even more pushback regarding my son and his schedule.
We just came off of Daylight Saving Time. It took a full week for Boo to adjust and get back into a passable routine and sleep schedule. There is no way that I will endure another week of that hell. And that was just moving him one hour back. I can’t imagine trying to adjust him two hours at once. Yikes.
I’m sure all of my anxiety is totally irrational and things will go smoothly. We will pack everything we need, we will breeze through security and not be forced to endure the full body scan, and our flight will be quiet and peaceful. I’m sure my family will be accommodating and happy to see us.
I wish our trips were like old times. Just for fun. We used to welcome them with open arms. We were essentially on vacation. We used to just be visiting my mom and it was fun. Now it’s a whole thing. Everyone lives there. Which should make it more fun, but somehow it becomes more stressful. Maybe it’s because I’m the youngest of the siblings and no one really listens or cares about what I have to say. My opinion has never been held in high regard in my family. I should probably be used to it by now.
I’m really looking forward to this trip. I really am. I hope the pit in my stomach dissolves and dissipates so I can move forward on dry land instead of continuing to tread the anxiety-ridden water. I don’t have time for this nonsense — I need to pack!
