It was two days before the beginning of a brand new year. I came home from the grocery store to find my beautiful, brilliant sister…sobbing and clutching fistfuls of tissue, huddled in a damp snot-puddle on the floor.
Olivia, my younger sibling, was twenty-seven years old at the time. I found her slumped in my living room with her suitcase open, belongings strewn all around, staring down at the carpeting.
She’d been visiting for the winter holidays and spent the last few weeks with me. I was excited to have her in town and eager to show her my new life in Hilo—a small, quirky, coastal city in Hawaii where I’d moved just a few months prior.
For the last fourteen days, I’d proudly presented the pineapples growing in my backyard, my favorite swimming hole, the best ahi poke on the planet, a majestic green sand beach. I took Olivia hither and yon, down red dirt roads, through jungle trails, all over the island, determined to give her the best vacation of all time. (And, you know, hopefully earn the official title of Coolest Big Sister Ever.)
Olivia was sweet and affectionate as always, linking her arm with mine as we walked and talked, laughing when I told our favorite inside-jokes (“Crack a window!” “Welcome to paperclip village!”). And yet, at many points during her visit, an invisible cloud seemed to hang over my sister’s head. She seemed somewhat distant, distracted, and tightly wound. She’d get strangely agitated over tiny mistakes that wouldn’t ordinarily bother her in the slightest—like accidentally tossing a hand-wash-only top into the machine.
I didn’t pry for information, but I could sense that my sister was tense and preoccupied for some reason—perhaps many reasons. A heavy load of emotional weight rested on her shoulders.
I know that feeling all too well.
Even when your physical body is in paradise—rainbows, sunshine, coconuts, and palm trees all around—your mind can be one thousand miles away, ruminating on difficult, worrisome things.
Finally, on the last day of her visit, as she was packing up for her flight back home, everything came bubbling to the surface. Like the Kilauea Volcano that had erupted earlier that same year—spewing up thick, viscous lava—my sister’s troubles poured out.
“I just…” Olivia burbled, amidst tears. “I just…feel so overwhelmed.”
“About what?” I asked, setting down the groceries and coming to her side.
“EVERYTHING,” she moaned.
I flopped onto the floor beside her.
“Okay,” I said. “What kind of ‘everything’? Do you want to talk about it?”
She did.
What Olivia described felt so achingly familiar to me because it’s something I’ve experienced so many times in my life. A situation that, I’m guessing, you’ve experienced too. A situation that can be summarized in ten words:
Too much to do.
Not enough hours in the day.
Over the next hour, Olivia shared everything that had been weighing heavily on her spirit. It all came out in a tumble. Parts of the story I knew, others I did not.
Olivia was attending graduate school full-time, working towards her master’s degree and earning straight A’s in all of her classes. This program was incredibly rewarding—and also, incredibly expensive. She was (understandably) nervous about racking up student loan debt that she’d never be able to repay. This anxiety crept around her neck, hot and itchy, invading her dreams, often keeping her awake at night.
To earn money, she’d gotten a part-time job and was working as many hours as she could. But this still wasn’t enough to cover the high cost of living in Boulder, Colorado. To reduce her expenses, she had found a unique living situation. She had her own private room in a lovely house—completely free—in exchange for doing yard work, dog walking, snow shoveling, and various other errands for the owner, Olivia’s godmother, who lived onsite.
It was great to save money on rent, but in between going to lectures at school, studying for exams, writing papers, working a job, and dealing with the housing-work-trade-barter situation and lengthy commutes up and down treacherous, snowy mountain roads, Olivia had virtually zero free time. Her days were crammed from dawn until bedtime.
On top of all this, her heart had been trampled by a romantic relationship that had turned sour a few months ago. Grieving this breakup made handling “the rest of life” even more difficult. Additional stress on top of stress.
She wanted to excel at school and graduate with honors. She wanted to earn enough money to cover her expenses without strain. She wanted to stay connected with friends and family, not let these relationships wither due to her busy schedule. She also wanted time to take care of her body—time to practice yoga, time to meditate, time to cook nutritious meals, and time to rest and sleep (what a concept!).
Eventually, she also wanted to meet a wonderful man, fall in love, buy some land, plant a garden, start a family, and raise children together. Her dreams were not exactly unusual or extravagant—we’re not talking about gold-plated toilets on a diamond-encrusted yacht—and yet, in this moment on my living room floor, everything felt so hard to reach. Life was so busy. Money was so tight. Time was so limited. Everything just felt so…overwhelming.
I could hear the pain in her voice, the spoken questions, and the unspoken ones, too. How will I care for a child if I can barely take care of myself? How will I get from here to where I long to be? How is it possible that I’m a smart, grown-up, adult person, and yet I’m still struggling with the most basic things—like figuring out how to manage my time?
“I always have so much to do. I never have enough time for everything. I feel like I’m drowning,” she finished bluntly, tears gushing from her eyes.
And so, here was Olivia’s predicament. A familiar dilemma, painfully relatable for me, and for so many people. Too much to do. Not enough hours in the day. Competing priorities. Overwhelm. Fried nerves.
New Year’s Eve was forty-eight hours away. But rather than feeling optimistic about the year ahead, Olivia already felt exhausted and anxious about everything that needed to be done. And the year hadn’t even begun.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate—and a lot on your mind,” I said. “It’s totally understandable that you feel overwhelmed.”
I hate seeing my sister (or anyone, really) in pain. I wish I could wave a magic wand and instantly erase all of my sister’s worries and struggles. I couldn’t offer a magic wand—but I could offer something else. Something to create a little more calm amidst the mental chaos.
“Do you want to try something with me?” I asked.
“What?” she sniffled.
“Let’s make a checklist.”
From mental chaos back to calm.
I gave Olivia a hug. We made a pot of ginger tea with honey. I brought out some big sheets of paper, Sharpie markers, bulletin boards, and brass tacks. We sat cross-legged and hashed it all out.
We started with some basic questions:
•What are your biggest priorities for the next season?
•What are your tiny goals for today? Tomorrow? The next day?
•Okay, how many of those goals can you realistically complete in a single day, while still leaving space for showering, eating, sleeping—you know, basic human-body maintenance?
•Have you been over-extending yourself, tying to cram an unreasonable number of activities into each day?
•If