Hello, Tiger! Time to put this cow to pasture
Happy New Year! The lunar new year is my favorite holiday of all. Especially when I am in Shanghai. Way better than Christmas. The build up is similar with lots of parties and dinners, but the actual holiday lasts 15 days and culminates with the lantern festival when all the kids go to the parks and buy little lanterns and eat yet more sweets.
But New year’s eve is when it really begins. The shared feeling of hope and good wishes in Shanghai with 25 million people is visceral. It also used to be very loud and smokey back in the days when everyone would light off fireworks in any available open space. Chains of old fashioned red firecrackers were lit off from the windows of high rises, people would run into intersections during the red light & set fire to a huge box with a five minute display (pity the unwitting taxi driver when the light turned green). Each year, we would visit friends in high places to watch the whole city light up like a war zone. Nothing welcomes the gods like blowing stuff up.
Such chaos no longer occurs as Shanghai’s public safety laws have caught up with the times & a lot of people in expensive apartment buildings complained when they caught fire. Chinese and Americans share many things, but our passion for fireworks is unparalleled. Like lighting off fireworks on July Fourth in drought stricken California, the danger in Shanghai is similar given the population density (particularly in downtown districts with over 20,000 people per square kilometer). And with the low price of fireworks and increasing prosperity, this added up to a whole lot of gunpowder per urban block. (Chicken & egg thought: What if the prosperity came from all the fireworks? )
It goes without saying that the lunar new year in Michigan is much more subdued. But this year is big for me and I decorated the house, bought flowers and gave our Guanyin bodhisattva a whole lot of peanuts and cash offerings (US$, CNY and TND just to be sure). You see, we are welcoming the year of the Tiger and very thankfully saying goodbye to the Ox.
I was born in the year of the Ox. According to Chinese astrology, when it is the year of your birth animal, big changes occur — sometimes they initiate, sometimes they come to fruition. Many Americans find this very exciting as nothing is more fun than celebrating the Confucian wisdom and exotic luck of the Chinese (eg. bad Chinese tattoos). This part of America does not share the sensible cynicism of our Chinese friends, who quickly remind us that “No. In fact, everything is not awesome.”
Of course luck is a flow of the good and the bad. Even the most optimistic American has to accept that you cannot possibly be so lucky and blessed in your life that you will never face a bit of bad luck & bumps in the road. To do so would be cheating fate and that really pisses off the gods. Any god of your choosing.
This past year of the Ox, I’ve had amazing changes come to fruition. I’m so lucky we moved to Michigan. It’s been a joy to be close to our mothers, share meals with them each week and have Stella build even stronger relationships with her amazing grandmothers. The people we’ve met and reconnected with are admirable in so many ways and yet still fun to hang around! I feel a sense of home here deep down in my bones thatI haven’t felt that since I lived in Shanghai.
There have been difficult times, too. Like all of us during the pandemic, life events and changes have been even more complex and trying. We lost my father-in-law to COVID-19 (among many other health issues) in Michigan and I was stuck in California with Stella trying to help her process while also come to terms with the fact that I never got to say goodbye. Yet, his passing was a blessing as it was a long road of decline to endure for both him and my mother-in law, who had put many things on pause to be his caregiver.
This year of the Ox also brings growth. Having been through family loss, a cross-country move and huge workload, I found myself really burned out. My nerves were fried like bad wiring ready to set the house on fire. For a while now (since the year of the Dog to be specific), I had been thinking more intentionally about who and how I want to be, and not continue to “Just Do It.” It’s no coincidence that Nike’s target audience caps out at 45 years of age; it was precisely this age where I ran out of boxes to tick and achievements to hide behind.
I knew I needed to find a different way, lest I become an old ox plowing the field until I stroked out and caught a dying glimpse of those happy California cows in the neighboring meadow. This past November, I made what was for me the very adult decision to take a long break to rewire and reset. I am really lucky I was supported by my company, my team, and our benefits (as it turns out, benefits are designed so that one is not completely rocking in a corner before asking for time off!). I also felt safe enough to share my decision with the people I work with and kinda be a poster child for “It’s ok not to be ok.” (This was a huge and vulnerable growth moment for me… Who wants to admit they are crashing and burning? Only mere mortals would do that.)
With all this personal work, I had planned a totally realistic sanity leave. Metaphorical therapy: A house still full of boxes to unpack, endless books to sort, and pictures to put up. Social therapy: I would book lunches and dinners with all the people I had met & build a social life beyond work. Exercise therapy: I would take walks around the lake and compete with Nicole and Sara on the Hydrow (the kinder, friendlier version of Peloton). Travel therapy: I found a burnout clinic for execs in Toronto. I’d solo road trip to the great white north, stopping for coffee at Tim Hortons, buying a Roots sweatshirt and fixing myself in a three-day workshop. Traditional therapy: I’d work a therapist to figure out this work-life balance thing people tell me about.
Truly, It was a glorious, multi-pronged fix-it list of things to do! And I did do many of these things. Quite a few more boxes were unpacked (thanks to my mom’s help). Great lunches were had. I enjoyed long walks around the lake in relatively decent weather. I even threw a Jingle Lady Party (nod to Beyonce) to bring together all my new and old friends in Michigan. I got a lot done although in hindsight, there was more Nike app than Calm app happening. And yet fate was waiting in the wings to slam on the brakes. Cartman, my cancer lump, came just in time for Christmas. He announced his arrival in early November and by Christmas eve I had met with the surgeon and was referred to the oncologist. With this downward spiral of a diagnosis, 2022 became a giant black hole with all plans sucked off into destructive nothingness.
My return to work was pushed out. All travel and holiday plans were eliminated. More painful still, I can’t go to any of my daughter’s dance competitions. While I am not much of the lasagna-baking, clean house-keeping, volunteering PTO mom, I love being a dance mom. (Not like the over the top moms vicariously living through their daughters in the TV show, but I am very enthusiastic and proud). This cancer cancellation is breaking my heart. I love to see Stella dance and as a parent, I love the grit it gives her. You don’t always win, you often fall and fail, but you always keep going. And so I am left with one goal for the year of the Tiger: I will see Stella when her team dances in DisneyWorld this coming December — A far off bright spot provided nothing goes wrong. (Luckily, I am in complete control with cancer.)
Even as the sparkly moments of 2021 fade into the black hole of cancer, there are blessings here. After all, Black holes spew star dust (or at least carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) into space. The very stuff we are made of! We are back in Michigan with the support of family and friends nearby. Our fridge is always full of home cooked food (never in my life has this been the case. I don’t cook. At all.). Stella always has a ride to dance or school. And the medical community here is full of familiar faces and friends we often turn to with questions. I’m also lucky to have already been on a leave from work, as the starting days of a cancer diagnosis are all-consuming with navigating the medical system, researching everything you possibly can, and getting all logistics set up for the family. Most of all, I’m so very blessed that Cartman the cancer lump announced himself early in the game and we started all this before the cancer spread.
When you have a serious illness of any sort, it finally is “Ok to not be ok.” There’s not much I can do. I have no choice but to just be vulnerable and get through it. I don’t have to run a marathon, lose 20 pounds, launch 3 new programs at work, or do anything that will make people clap and cheer. I just need to focus on listening to my body, doing sensible things to get through this and be a decent person. Curiously, I feel really grounded and happy and creative, too. Content even. The last time I felt this way was when I was pregnant in 2009. Yup, the year of the Ox. When so much is beyond your control and can’t mitigated or diverted by achieving and doing, you find yourself exploring life in different ways. And just as blackholes are able to ignite whole new star formations, I can only believe something novel will come out of this year
Despite the sensible cynicism by which to view this past year of the Ox, I am hopeful and there is an underlying it is a lot of grit … another great trait Americans and Chinese share. In any given year, if you are living life right, you will fall and you will fail but you will always get back up and keep dancing (or skate, if you are Nathan Chen). Not everyone gets a trophy and not everyone becomes a star, but you dance the best you possibly can in any given moment.
There’s so much happening, from Covid and its many casualties to the geopolitical state of the world, I don’t know that any big trophies are in store for 2022. But I am sending my most sincere wishes for hope, health, prosperity and peace to all in the world as we welcome the Tiger on this eve of the Lantern Festival. (Yes, it took me 14 days to write this. I blame the meds they are giving me.)
Happy New Year and may you keep dancing on … Laurie
Note to my readers: I’m rescinding my promise of shorter posts and the frequency. But I’ll keep trying. :)
