This weekend we went to a suburban Cineplex Odeon Silver City for a late-Sunday afternoon screening of the multi-award nominated new movie Up in the Air, an up-to-the-minute recession-era story, if ever there was one.
The theatre was packed.
So, you must be wondering ...
In a post dealing with holiday stress, why am I musing about a George Clooney star-turn in Jason Reitman's latest Oscar–buzzing Hollywood film?
How does this sardonic slice of a professional downsizer's life relate to the stresses of the season? Where's the "holiday" message in this sharp-edged portrait of a self-described shark in constant flight around the country firing people for profit and for corporate execs who haven't the guts to do it themselves?
If you've read anything about this movie – it world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September – you know it's somewhat docu-dramatic. Bookended by clips of "talking heads" reacting to the news of their professional demise, you can't help feel for them – and for good reason.
They're not actors. They're for real.
Last January, Reitman interviewed these freshly "terminated" workers in St. Louis and Detroit, on location. I knew this backstory going into the theatre on Sunday afternoon, but it delivered an unexpected emotional double whammy for me.
Seeing these people gigantically magnified on the big screen, smashing away at desktops, breaking down in tears, I kept thinking about them now. Today. Eleven months later. In the back of my mind, while their lives were really disintegrating in front of us, I kept wondering about them and the thousands of people like them, right now, all around us. Everywhere.
Not just statistics. Real people. Really laid-off. What are the stresses they're feeling this holiday season?
This was the movie's subtext, for me.
Are they struggling to hold onto their homes? How are their families managing? Their kids? How is their mental and emotional health this Christmas 2009?
When you lose a job, you lose your identity, your confidence, your self-esteem, your daily routine, your purpose, your raison d'etre.
"It's like a death," as one man in the movie describes how being downsized feels.
Losing your job, after 10 or 20 or 30 years, is like losing your family, another man said, obviously in shock.
Isn't this season all about family? Friends? How can you celebrate when you've lost a huge chunk of your life, not to mention, your livelihood?
I thought about that, when I left my secure, full-time job after 30 years, on January 26, 2007. It was my choice, but still, I had nowhere to go. I felt rudderless, alone, isolated. Out of sight. Out of my work family's minds.
You spend five days a week working with your workmates and colleagues, more time awake at work over a lifetime than you do with your children, your spouse, your parents, your siblings and your friends.
It can be treacherous putting your life back together after it's been ripped away from you, any time of year, but especially at this time of year.
You have to keep reaching out. Even if you'd rather wrap yourself up in your flannels and bury yourself under the covers 'til Spring.
Yesterday afternoon, I called one of my dearest friends, to say hello.
"Oh, my daughter and I are in the middle of baking," she said sounding slightly breathless and quite stressed. "I'll call you later."
She didn't. That's okay. I'll call back. She bakes for her church. She gives of herself all the time. Her time. She's widowed. She takes anti-depressants and she has a strain of leukemia she has to keep an eye on, but she keeps on going and keeps on giving.
That's one way to manage holiday stress. Concentrate on giving your time to people who may benefit from your care and compassion.
Instead of sending an email, pick up the phone and call someone. There's nothing like the touch of your voice.
Smile as you run about doing all the things you're stressing out to do. There's nothing like the warmth of your smile. That warmth is contagious. Strangers smile often back.
Life is for the living and the giving. Right now.
That's one way to deal with holiday stress. Turn your energies around a bit, if you can. All the experts on coping with stress say the same things.
Don't wait to do what you really want to do for someone else. One of the best ways to deal with stress any time of year is to plan, be realistic, give of yourself and take care of yourself, so you can take care of all the things you want to do for the people in your life.
"The holidays and Christmas are a time to take a good look around you," psychologist John H. Grohol wrote on his World of Psychology blog on December 13, 2003. His message is universal and timeless. Wise.
"The holidays are about finding something spiritual and wonderful about yourself, your life, and the people who fill it and make it special. Not to just give thanks or show appreciation through some materialistic and commercial sense, but to understand that you have a lot. Despite everything, you are alive, relatively well, and have a life filled with people that love you.
"Yes, you may not realize it or even believe it to be true, but it is nonetheless. You may feel unlovable, unloved, unhappy, stressed out. But those are the simply untruths we tell ourselves every day. The frequency of the telling doesn't make them come true."
* * *
"Just writing this helps," wrote Carole in her comment on this special series we're running here for the next few weeks on How to handle holiday stress – to help ease you through "the season."
So, keep your comments coming. Share your memories, your concerns. Give a little. Anything that's on your mind. You'll feel good. It's therapeutic. Cathartic. Generous.
I'll respond. It may take me some time – I'm madly stressing out over my end of term marking – but I won't forget.
I'm here and we're all in this together.
Cheers.
More reading:
I see this right now, in 2009 in the small towns of Northwestern Ontario. Seeing how people who have worked 25 to 40 years for the pulp mills in the area and now have everything ripped out from under them when they are accustom to a certain pace of life.
Right now my father is on edge and so many more people are in my hometown and even around the workplace where I work at a catholic school board as people are worried about there own jobs because of students leaving with there families as they search for work.
Everyone is on edge right now and christmas here doesn't even really seem like christmas these past 3 years in the area. There are just too many unknowns when it comes to people having a job and I don't think Mr. Stephen Harper or Mr. Dalton Mcguinty realizes what type of impact this is having not just on the economy, but on the people of the province of Ontario.
Sometimes I swear they think Southern Ontario is what all of Ontario is, but there are hardworking people in Northwestern Ontario on the tip of Lake Superior fighting right now to make bill payments, keep there children fed, clothed and educated. Pay a mortgage, pay for a vehicle and exist. I've watched people have to give there house up because they can't afford the mortgage anymore cause EI just doesn't cover all your bills plus a $80,000 house mortgage etc.
It's not just a 'death' it's more like a swarming plague because it takes down one and keeps on moving. Pulling everyone into a depressed feeling and a loss of hope and Buchannan who owns most of the pulp mills in this area keeps building up peoples hopes and yet nothing comes out of it. People have lost hope in this town and it's broken up families because husbands have had to go to alberta to get work so that they can support there family and that's hard on some people as well.
It makes you look at society a lot and wonder if the elderly thought of going to college to get a diploma so you'll get a good job has gone out the window. Nothing is safe anymore not even ones job. Job security has taken that leap out the window towards the pavement and its incredibly sad to see that things have become that way.
You can feel the sadness in these towns, its like a heavy weight in the air. If Terrace Bay Pulp does come back, it will definatly not be the same as it used to be.
Posted by: Josh | December 17, 2009 at 10:23 AM