Earlier this year I was driving home from a dance performance when one of my dancing friends (who shall be nameless for her protection), told us about a little comment her daughter had made years before when she was a teenager.
The two of them had been getting ready to go out somewhere. The mom, my friend, was choosing nice clothes to wear, putting on some makeup and doing her hair. Clearly, she was taking too long for her teenage daughter. As she put on the finishing touches, her daughter asked, “Why are you bothering to do that? You had your day.”
As unnamed friend finished the little story, the rest of us in the vehicle sucked every bit of air out of it as we gasped in horror! Had our day???
WHEN?!
And WHY DIDN’T SOMEONE TELL US?!!!
Once we all exhaled, we laughed uproariously together. Yes, this of course would be how a teenager would view their mother. From their point of view, we have clearly ‘had our day’. We’d had our chance to be young. To look in fashion. To wear the latest trends, and to be ‘cool’. We’d had our chance to hang out with friends, and to be ultra self-conscious about ourselves, wondering if we fit in at all. We’d definitely had our day. Unfortunately, none of us could tell the others when it had been.
As we drove along, thinking of all sorts of ways we had and had not ‘had our day’, through the side-splitting laughter, there were also hints of deep thought.
What if we HAD had our day? It was possible after all. What if ‘our day’ had happened while we were busy raising our children, working, and trying to keep everything together. What if it had happened when we were still trying to figure out what we believed in, and how we fit with the world. What if it was when we were studying hard in university? What if we really had had it and had missed it?
As we talked together, we agreed that whether or not we’d ‘had our day’, we believed we still had at least one day ahead of us that might just be ‘our day’. What would it look like we wondered? Would we recognize it when it was happening or is it possible we might miss it again.
I’ve thought about this so much since then. When I look back upon my life, even when I search through my photographs, there are none, not even one, labeled, ‘Your Day’. And yet, I know I’ve had my share of spectacular moments. One of those might have happened within ‘my day’. I just cannot, for the life of me, pick out which day was my day.
As I look forward to my next years, I wonder which day will be ‘my day’. I wonder how I will know. I wonder if I’ll recognize it, or if I’ll have to wait several more decades until someone much younger reminds me again that ‘I’ve had my day’.
Most of us recognize, in real time, when it is not ‘our day’. These kinds of days have a feeling to them, a feeling as though if anything can go wrong, it will. Everything feels just slightly off. It’s as if we are one gear out of synch. But the days that are ‘our days’ are not quite so easy to recognize in real time unless we know what to look for.
Here is what I now know about recognizing ‘my day’.
For the most part, ‘my day’ is never going to show up on the calendar as ‘This is Your Day’. Rather ‘my day’ is any day in which I live in a moment of joy. Sometimes my moment is brief. It’s important for me to be alert, and present, for these moments can be so fleeting.
My moments of joy are the moments that fill me up. They make me feel. They are often shared with people I love. They have no rules around them. When it is ‘my day’, I might be leading a workshop where everyone connects to the work, and where I am at my personal and professional best. Joy.
Or I might be toboganning down a ‘mountain’ with two-year old Andy. Joy.
Or carrying him back up that same mountain. Actually, the moment of joy is not so much the carrying part but when he asks me, right as we come to a stop at the bottom of the hill, ‘Gramma, can you please carry me up the mountain?’. Joy. I cannot think of a mountain I would not carry either him or his brother up.
‘My day’ sometimes feels like a great conversation, like the one I had this week with another one of my friends as we talked about our ‘Gramma worries’. Joy.
‘My day’ can be me hurrying to put the finishing touches on a meal, and stopping to listen to the sounds of all the different conversations between the people in our family. Joy.
‘My day’ can be dancing to a brand new-to-me, chart topping song, one that our dance instructor Reba J, did not think for one minute we were too old for. Joy. I especially know it’s my day when we dancers face each other, and catch ourselves with huge smiles on our faces, knowing we belong to something so, so special. Joy x 2.
‘My day’ can be hiking up a mountain. Not the whole thing, but the parts when we stop to hear … nothing at all. And the parts when we find ourselves either in rich conversation, or tears of laughter. Joy.
‘My day’ can be visiting Shirley on her farm with Ben and Andy. Here ‘my day’ consists of the boys climbing up into the grain trucks and ‘delivering zebras to the zoo’. And picturing the combines all lined up together as Shirley describes the day last week when kind neighbours arrived with machinery and trucks to help get the last of the crops off the fields before the snow came. Joy.
It’s definitely possible that I’ve already ‘had my day’. But on Friday we’ll be visiting Shirley with Ben and Andy and I have a strong hunch that too, is going to be ‘my day’.
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Is today your day?’
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching. She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society. She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching. She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to notice ‘your day’.
The two of them had been getting ready to go out somewhere. The mom, my friend, was choosing nice clothes to wear, putting on some makeup and doing her hair. Clearly, she was taking too long for her teenage daughter. As she put on the finishing touches, her daughter asked, “Why are you bothering to do that? You had your day.”
As unnamed friend finished the little story, the rest of us in the vehicle sucked every bit of air out of it as we gasped in horror! Had our day???
WHEN?!
And WHY DIDN’T SOMEONE TELL US?!!!
Once we all exhaled, we laughed uproariously together. Yes, this of course would be how a teenager would view their mother. From their point of view, we have clearly ‘had our day’. We’d had our chance to be young. To look in fashion. To wear the latest trends, and to be ‘cool’. We’d had our chance to hang out with friends, and to be ultra self-conscious about ourselves, wondering if we fit in at all. We’d definitely had our day. Unfortunately, none of us could tell the others when it had been.
As we drove along, thinking of all sorts of ways we had and had not ‘had our day’, through the side-splitting laughter, there were also hints of deep thought.
What if we HAD had our day? It was possible after all. What if ‘our day’ had happened while we were busy raising our children, working, and trying to keep everything together. What if it had happened when we were still trying to figure out what we believed in, and how we fit with the world. What if it was when we were studying hard in university? What if we really had had it and had missed it?
As we talked together, we agreed that whether or not we’d ‘had our day’, we believed we still had at least one day ahead of us that might just be ‘our day’. What would it look like we wondered? Would we recognize it when it was happening or is it possible we might miss it again.
I’ve thought about this so much since then. When I look back upon my life, even when I search through my photographs, there are none, not even one, labeled, ‘Your Day’. And yet, I know I’ve had my share of spectacular moments. One of those might have happened within ‘my day’. I just cannot, for the life of me, pick out which day was my day.
As I look forward to my next years, I wonder which day will be ‘my day’. I wonder how I will know. I wonder if I’ll recognize it, or if I’ll have to wait several more decades until someone much younger reminds me again that ‘I’ve had my day’.
Most of us recognize, in real time, when it is not ‘our day’. These kinds of days have a feeling to them, a feeling as though if anything can go wrong, it will. Everything feels just slightly off. It’s as if we are one gear out of synch. But the days that are ‘our days’ are not quite so easy to recognize in real time unless we know what to look for.
Here is what I now know about recognizing ‘my day’.
For the most part, ‘my day’ is never going to show up on the calendar as ‘This is Your Day’. Rather ‘my day’ is any day in which I live in a moment of joy. Sometimes my moment is brief. It’s important for me to be alert, and present, for these moments can be so fleeting.
My moments of joy are the moments that fill me up. They make me feel. They are often shared with people I love. They have no rules around them. When it is ‘my day’, I might be leading a workshop where everyone connects to the work, and where I am at my personal and professional best. Joy.
Or I might be toboganning down a ‘mountain’ with two-year old Andy. Joy.
Or carrying him back up that same mountain. Actually, the moment of joy is not so much the carrying part but when he asks me, right as we come to a stop at the bottom of the hill, ‘Gramma, can you please carry me up the mountain?’. Joy. I cannot think of a mountain I would not carry either him or his brother up.
‘My day’ sometimes feels like a great conversation, like the one I had this week with another one of my friends as we talked about our ‘Gramma worries’. Joy.
‘My day’ can be me hurrying to put the finishing touches on a meal, and stopping to listen to the sounds of all the different conversations between the people in our family. Joy.
‘My day’ can be dancing to a brand new-to-me, chart topping song, one that our dance instructor Reba J, did not think for one minute we were too old for. Joy. I especially know it’s my day when we dancers face each other, and catch ourselves with huge smiles on our faces, knowing we belong to something so, so special. Joy x 2.
‘My day’ can be hiking up a mountain. Not the whole thing, but the parts when we stop to hear … nothing at all. And the parts when we find ourselves either in rich conversation, or tears of laughter. Joy.
‘My day’ can be visiting Shirley on her farm with Ben and Andy. Here ‘my day’ consists of the boys climbing up into the grain trucks and ‘delivering zebras to the zoo’. And picturing the combines all lined up together as Shirley describes the day last week when kind neighbours arrived with machinery and trucks to help get the last of the crops off the fields before the snow came. Joy.
It’s definitely possible that I’ve already ‘had my day’. But on Friday we’ll be visiting Shirley with Ben and Andy and I have a strong hunch that too, is going to be ‘my day’.
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Is today your day?’
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching. She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society. She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching. She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to notice ‘your day’.
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