It's finals time and I am currently procrastinating on an eight-page paper that I absolutely have to do well on. Between school, my kids getting ready for their first performance (right at the end of finals week, how convenient!), and the fact that I'm supposed to be performing too -- except that between the holiday and being sick I had to take two weeks off of dance -- I am completely overwhelmed. I am stressed, upset, constantly swinging from eating nothing at all to eating everything in sight, and my self-esteem is unusually low.
Add to that all of the horrible things I hear about on the news every time I open up social media, and it's enough to make me want to give up on everything for a while and just become a hermit in my room (at least until my stockpile of snacks runs out).
The only sense of comfort I have is to focus on looking for the positive, however hard it might be. I have to, "for the helpers," as Mr. Rogers would say, and try my best to be a helper as well.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, I posted the following post on my cheer team's Instagram:
It did not gain much popularity as a post, but for me, it was the example I needed to set for the girls. We cannot allow ourselves to give up or hide out, especially when we are merely hearing about these attacks peripherally. To allow the "bad guys" (to put it simply) to control us this way is to give them power they want but do not deserve. Instead, we need to focus on what we can do, both for the victims and the rest of the world. No act of kindness is wasted, and the more positive energy we can put into the world, the better.
This year, when I am certainly not exactly experiencing a surplus of wealth, I cannot raise too much for any charity efforts, but as a struggling college student, I do have the money to buy a gift for a 6-year-old girl whose parents are a part of the Homeboy Industries trainee program, trying to get their lives back on track, and are unable to provide a full Christmas for their kids. When I heard one of my favorite high school teachers was trying to collect 150 presents for kids like this, I signed up, because this, at least, I can do. So this year at Christmas, this little girl will get a collection of Minnie Mouse items, specifically because as a child in Southern California who almost definitely does not get to have much Disney merchandise, despite her proximity to the Disney park, I wanted to make sure that just this once, she feels included. It isn't much, but a lot of heart went into the gift I bought her, and I certainly hope she experiences as much joy in receiving this gift as I did in picking it out for her.
Like I said, this time of year is not exactly great for my self-esteem. The time I feel best about myself though, is in service to others, because deep down I am still the little girl who was devastated by hearing about the September 11 attacks. That Christmas, at just 7 years old, I wrote a letter to Santa Claus asking that he take extra presents to all of the kids who lost their parents that day. It would even be OK, I wrote, if he took my presents so I got less that year, because I just wanted those kids to get as good of a Christmas as possible. This was about five months before I became a cheerleader officially, but this is the clearest memory I have about wanting to spread cheer to the world. That letter, for me, is full of the responsibility I try to share with my cheerleaders to change the world. Now I am not writing cute letters to Santa, but I am still spending my Christmas money on gifts for kids who have it worse than I do, and that has to count for something, right?
Maybe I just want to feel like I'm doing something right with my life, but someone once said that to "save the cheerleader" would "save the World," so I'm sure going to try to train mine right!
