Everybody loves a celebration, don’t they?
The problem is, I often forget to celebrate.
This is terrible, you might be thinking. How in the world can a person forget to celebrate?
As someone who keeps a very meticulous calendar, it might even seem unbelievable that I forget to celebrate. And of course I don’t forget to celebrate my kids’ birthdays or the last (or first) day of school or every little amazing thing that happens in someone else’s life. There is always something worth celebrating when it comes to someone else.
But celebrating myself? Not so much.
I was recently reminded of this rather careless attitude of mine while talking to a friend. She hasn’t been to our Zoombie writing group for a while. When I asked her why she’d been missing, she said, “Well, I finished writing my chapter book and sent it off to my agent, and I just figured I’d celebrate for a while.”
I thought, When’s the last time I celebrated finishing a book? I thought, I usually just move right on, like it’s no big deal. (It’s a big deal. Writing 70,000 words over and over and over again? Seeing a project through to the finish? Making anything that adds value to the world? Those are all big deals.) I thought, I’m not even sure I properly celebrated getting a book deal.
I thought, What does a celebration really look like?
I don’t think I’m alone in this.
Celebrating yourself isn’t quite as easy as celebrating other people.
We should make it so.
Celebrations are uplifting. They’re markers of our hard work. We don’t work hard for the celebration, of course, but it allows us a moment to really take stock of the strength and fortitude and perseverance it takes to finish something, to share it with the world (or colleagues or teachers or friends), to give something back.
We can celebrate our hard work. We can give ourselves permission to acknowledge that while we came close to the edge of giving up (really, really close), we didn’t give up. We can celebrate the chapter written today, the newly perfected song lyric after so long feeling stuck, the second step of our project done and dusted, even if there are ten more to go.
We can celebrate in big, throw-a-party ways or tiny take-a-nap-during-this-work-session ways. It doesn’t really matter how we celebrate.
Celebration, I’m coming to understand, is a state of mind.
What would it look like if we turned a celebratory eye to the seemingly small, insignificant things of our world? We finally mowed the lawn after four weekends of having it on the to-do list. Celebrate! Our kid found his missing left shoe. Celebrate! We made it through the whole day without saying, “I was, like.” Celebrate!
I know these are mostly silly examples of small celebratory accomplishments, but I also often wonder now how much joy we might see if we looked at everything with celebratory eyes—and how much we miss when we don’t.
Here are some of my favorite ways to celebrate:
1. Watch a show or read a book.
Of course I’m always reading books for my writing career (because reading widely is one of the surefire ways to make you a better writer), but I also sometimes like to celebrate by taking half an hour or an hour to watch a favorite show. I’m currently watching Downton Abbey, a historical saga produced by the BBC (it was just taken off Netflix, but you can watch it on Amazon Prime as well). Because I don’t often take the time to watch shows, this really feels like a celebration when I do it.
2. Give myself a day off.
I’ve come to understand (or I’m starting to, at least) that days off are like celebrations in and of themselves for a person like me. I don’t often give myself days off, except for the occasional Sabbaticals I take to step away from projects and let my brain refresh itself. So a day off, or a half-day off, feels like a sort of celebration, especially when I can do something special with my friends or family. Which leads me to the last (and best) way (in my opinion) to celebrate.
3. Making new memories with family and/or friends.
I love sharing a special meal or having a small dessert party or buying (vegan) ice cream to have sundaes with my kids. Going out to a restaurant. Hosting a potluck. Seeing a movie in the theater. Visiting a park for a nature bike ride. All these things feel special and can be considered celebratory, with the right attitude and under the right circumstances (such as a finished manuscript or powering through a particularly difficult creative project or a week spent building a new habit like daily meditation).
