Tag: friends

Happy Holidays?

Posted on by andrew

Emma Quackenbush (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

For some, December 25th represents significant time with family and friends and includes long-standing traditions and rituals. For others, the holidays can be challenging. I, like many, live away from my family. My immediate family lives thousands of kilometres away. This year on Christmas Eve, while my family shared COVID rapid test results and feasted on seafood, I was home wondering if my work would continue after Christmas or not, with another COVID-related shutdown looming. My family tries their best to include me in celebrations, but nothing will replace being there in person. In my experience, many things about Christmas, while pleasant, feel routine but not necessarily merry or bright.

 

I chose to live in my city, far from family, only because I got a job here. I work in a highly competitive industry, so you basically go where the job is. It is cold, the days are short around the winter solstice and it has a culture that I find unrelatable. I am puzzled by people who have grown up here who believe it’s the best place on earth. They embrace the numerous quirks and seem to love suffering cold winters (“At least it’s a dry cold!”) only to luxuriate in mosquito-riddled summers. Maybe you have to have been born here to understand the draw. 

 

I have always felt like an outsider here. That feeling intensifies over the holidays because my work schedule doesn’t allow for time off around the holidays. I see everyone around me getting excited to put up decorations and begin their holiday traditions, but each time someone asks me what my plans are, I feel further alienated from this place and this season. I don’t have an answer that feels genuine to me. 

 

Instead, I feel the financial pressure to buy and exchange gifts. I feel social pressure to have a home decorated just so, attend parties and gatherings and imbibe more than I would otherwise. I feel the emotional pressure to connect with family and friends in some significant way while still balancing one of the busiest times of the year at work. 

 

As I get older, I have learned to set more and more boundaries around these pressures. I’ve learned to say no to food and drink that I know will make me feel off-balance physically. I’ve discovered that the busy work schedule is an excellent excuse for declining invitations, and fortunately, my family and friends understand, or at the very least have accepted, that they will most likely not receive a gift from me. These boundaries help me keep in check with my physical, mental and emotional well-being. Still, I always feel like something is missing.

 

The practice of setting my boundaries has made it difficult to create my own holiday traditions. Most years, I feel like I’m in survival mode. I am more focused on maintaining a healthy balance than planning activities, baking or decorating. I’ve learned to focus my energy on what makes me feel fulfilled and honours my mind, body and soul. That focus looks different from year to year. Still, those things include a lot of self-care, like drinking enough water, exercising, keeping up my writing practice and centring my energy on genuine connections rather than peripheral ones. 

 

Over the years of separation from my family, I’ve discovered that if I don’t create space to establish holiday routines, no matter how large or small, I will easily be swept up into someone else’s vision of the holidays. I’ve always appreciated people reaching out to include me in their events and traditions; however, by accepting these invitations, I’ve found myself putting on a façade and conforming to other people’s expectations. 

 

December 25th, in many ways, is just another day. If you don’t have a family structure where long-held traditions prevail, that’s ok. Maybe there is just as much value in writing yourself a letter to check in and pouring a cup of tea before climbing into bed early.

 

For those who come from big, happy families who embrace each other’s differences and have found ways to celebrate all together, I applaud you. However, the holidays can be difficult, even in the best of circumstances. I long to find a way to create my own traditions, and I know the only way I can do that is by cultivating my well-being. So if you invite me for dinner next year and I respond by saying, “I respectfully decline,” don’t take it personally. I guarantee: it’s not you, it’s me.

 

—

 

Emma Quackenbush is a freelance writer, professional cellist and educator whose focus is on the mind-body connection. Holding a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, Emma has worked in the orchestra field in North America for over a decade. Outside of writing and music, Emma lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she struggles to stay warm in the winters and finds any occasion she can to travel to more temperate climates.

To Shanghai, With Love

Posted on by vwideski

Born in the bustle of a densely packed, hyper-competitive metropolis, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Tim Ling takes us back to a childhood spent meeting the onerous demands of an exacting academic system – not only giving us a taste of what it was like, but showing how crucial and enduring friendships were forged in its crucible.

Before coming to Canada, I lived in Shanghai. It was the place where I grew from a baby crying in my mother’s arms to a 15-year-old young man. Shanghai was the city upon which I built each piece of my understanding of the world, this city that I had never left before. Until I left, I never realized that I could love a place so much.

Shanghai is a city with 27 million people. That’s like stuffing the whole population of Canada on Vancouver Island. In Shanghai, there’s never a lack of human resources. 

Then again, having a large population comes with challenges. Competition was created, far more intense than what we have in Canada. One can be doing their job one day and be fired for no reason the next, just because there are so many people waiting to take their  position. Workers often lack any sense of belonging in their companies, because there are likely any number of other companies willing to offer a better salary. 

People don’t stay in one position for long – usually no more than a couple of years, in fact. You either get promoted, switch to a better company, or get kicked out. This is one reason why we call Shanghai the City of Opportunities. With people switching positions all the time, there’s always a chance that you find a better place. 

The story I’m going to share today isn’t going to focus on the competition of Shanghai, but it’s going to be based on that. 

As a kid I didn’t know how fierce the world was outside. We were like blank paper, waiting for the stories of our lives to be written. I spent the nine years from Grade 1 to Grade 9 learning concepts that made me who I am today.

When I was in school, students formed very close relationships. We were under a system that is quite different to the Canadian educational system. The sense of intense competition was present in schools from the moment you walked in. I still remember arriving in Grade 9 every day at 6:30 in the morning, studying for 12 continuous hours doing test papers and practice problems, and not leaving the classroom until 6:30 in the evening. 

What we learnt was way more difficult than what is taught in Canada too. I was doing the equivalent of Grade 12 math in Grade 9. However, I didn’t feel stressed out then. I’d even say it felt pretty easy. Maybe it’s that I got used to it, but more likely, I believe that socializing with people around me helped me overcome that stress. 

We were all students who bore too much at that young age. So, like patients in the same hospital ward, we felt very close to each other. After all, they were the only ones to accompany you while you did your 12-hour test sheets. We could always talk to each other and discuss problems. We’d even eat and nap together. We felt like one whole. 

When we face difficulties, we won’t just stress out. We don’t even need to use words. I just turn my head around. I look at you. You are doing the same stuff I am doing. You are facing the same difficulty I am facing. You turn around and face me. We look into each other’s eyes and we smile. We are in this together. 

There is this emotion built among us, like brothers and sisters, that made us lifelong friends. School is like a second home, where those classmates who have been through the hard times with you are your family members. 

It was with those friends, who acted as an analgesic drug every time I fell, that I overcame this period of time.

Pretty strange for a Grade 9 like me to have built those kinds of relationships at the time, right? I felt surprised by it even then. I was full of resentment for the educational system we had, and thought, given a chance, I would never come back again. 

Looking back, I realize that that system actually worked. When I later flipped open a Canadian Grade 10 textbook, only to find  that I had already learnt everything in it in Grade 6, I was surprised, and joyful. 

What’s more is that I now have a group of friends forged from deep, shared experiences. I would never have such friends if it weren’t for the nine years of education I got in Shanghai. 

Shanghai was the place where my stories began. It is where I put hard effort into my studies and built my most important friendships. It is where I gained my most important understandings, and learnt how to socialize. 

I fell in love with Shanghai, without noticing.

When was the last time you fell in love with a city or a culture? What was it that captured your heart? Get us dreaming about faraway lands and special places in the comments or at a Low Entropy meeting.