I have the flu. Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to in the last few days seems to have it. I wonder if you might have a touch of it too?
It’s not the 24 hour kind or the kind that has you running for the bathroom. No cough or sniffles, but you might find your eyes leaking occasionally.
It’s the kind that makes you groan when you hear your alarm in the morning. The entire day goes by and you realize you never quite found your groove. And your to-do list looks blurry, but that doesn’t matter, because even if you could focus on what was written, you wouldn’t have the energy to do anything about it anyway. Oh yeah, and people annoy you. That’s a big one…
I call it the blue flu. It feels a little like depression, but there’s something different. It’s all-consuming yet somehow temporary.
Do you have it?
I’m thinking our friend, January, has a lot to do with it. We need warmth and sunshine and we need it bad.
I was sharing my blue flu theory with my husband last night (who, by the way, doesn’t have the blue flu; he seems to be suffering from I-need-to-win-more-basketball-games-insomnia which is his typical go-to malady this time of year). Saul started laughing when I told him I think my condition is weather related. Nic, we spent ten years living in North Dakota! It’s like summertime here!
Every year we lived in Fargo I would escape to Mexico in the middle of the winter for a shot of tequila the blue flu antidote.
No trip to Mexico for me this year. You staying home too?
So what’s our solution? Kindness for sure. Kindness is always the answer. But what kind of kindness?
I’ve been spending lots of time pondering and praying on this one. My natural default is to “go big or go home.” I like to pick a few things and then do them up full force. I want to be the best– not necessarily to beat someone else, but to prove to myself I can do it.
Friend, this is the wrong mindset if you’re suffering from the blue flu. Being the biggest and bestest and changing the world isn’t on a sick person’s to do list. So for January and February (I’m hoping by March we’ll all get over this), I’m going to go small.
Instead of getting a blow torch and setting the world on fire with my awesomeness, I’m picking up the pruning shears. I’m cutting away everything that isn’t a necessity in my life. If it makes me happy, it stays. If it feeds the souls of myself or my tribe, it stays. If it sucks us dry, it’s gone.
There will be time in the spring to finish our to-do lists and even add some more grand ideas to the agenda. But for today, let’s keep it simple. Be kind. To you.
