Maycember: A Pep Talk + 4 Tips to Get You Through the Next 6 Weeks

May has a secret identity. On the surface it looks like a normal busy month. But underneath? No way! It's got emotional weight that makes December look like child's play, the budget of a small wedding, and the calendar of someone who said yes to absolutely everything.

We call it Maycember — and if you're feeling it right now, this episode is your pep talk.

In this episode, I'm giving you five practical strategies to move through May without losing yourself in it. 

We're talking about getting everything out of your head and onto a calendar, building a Maycember emergency kit so you stop panic-ordering graduation gifts the night before, and giving yourself full permission to not do everything — without the guilt spiral.

One strategy alone can save you hundreds of dollars and a week's worth of stress. I can't wait for you to try it this week.

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Transcript

Welcome to your Maycember pep talk. This is the Balancing Busy Podcast. I'm Leah Remillét, and I'm so glad you're here.

And honestly, the fact that you're listening right now, in the middle of everything you've got going on, tells me everything I need to know about you. You care. You show up. And you're probably running on sixty percent capacity with a fully packed calendar and a to-do list that is growing faster than you can cross things off.

So today I want to give you a pep talk. Not the kind that's going to add anything more to your plate — I promise. But the kind that's actually going to give you permission to breathe, to enjoy, and to let things be a little simpler. And I have some great ideas on how we can do that, because we need this.

So what is Maycember? If you haven't heard the term before — and you probably have — Maycember is exactly what it sounds like. It's May showing up with all of the chaos and emotional weight of December.

We all know December is a lot, and we know why. The shopping, the events, the cookies, the expectations. But here's what makes May different — and you maybe haven't ever thought about this before. May is harder emotionally because it is wrapped up in beginnings and endings and milestones.

You're doing kindergarten graduation, or they're graduating from middle school or high school — that's where I'm at this year. So you have all these endings, these beginnings, and that has some weight that no amount of Amazon Prime or holiday music can prepare you for.

Although I do think a really, really fire, fun, happy summer vibes playlist can help. We could have our own kind of version of Christmas music, but for May. So the emotional weight of May is definitely different.

You're not just checking off events on the calendar, like the Christmas party and the Christmas concert. You're watching your kids walk across the stage, walk through one door and into the next. You're sitting at their last ever elementary school performance, or you're sending someone off to college, or watching your baby graduate high school. That's me. That's what I'm doing.

These are the moments that years from now, we're going to close our eyes and try to remember the details. They'll be fuzzy. You're not going to remember all of them — don't worry about that. But we're going to try to remember a lot of them. That's what makes May and June, depending on where you live, add a weight to it. It hits different.

Last week, my episode was all about how to survive the summer and how you really want to start planning now, especially if you've got younger kids, to have a great summer. And I gave the strategies and the ideas of doing these things now in April or May so that you can have that great summer.

I shared how this was actually a replay episode. I had originally recorded it three years ago, and I wanted to listen to the episode before I put it out there to make sure I really liked all the ideas and there wasn't anything I wanted to change. I got to the very end of the episode. I was on my elliptical listening to it, and I started sobbing.

It's because when I recorded that episode three years ago, my oldest was about to graduate high school. Well, now my youngest is graduating high school, and it just hit me in a way I can't even explain. I had to get off the elliptical and just take a minute.

So there is this difference. This hits in a different way for us. And I just want to recognize that and tell you that, because if you're like, "Why do I feel so heavy?" — that is why. If you're in a season where someone is leaving or arriving or crossing a finish line, I see you. This month holds so much.

I just want to say that we need to give ourselves grace for the tears. Even if they show up on an elliptical, they mean that something beautiful happened. And that's pretty incredible, right?

Okay, so I want to shift. Because there's this other part of May that nobody warns you about enough, and that's how much it costs. May is expensive. Let's just run through some of these expenses right now.

You're buying formal wear — prom dresses, suits, alterations, shoes that will be worn exactly once. You're writing checks for graduates or sending Venmo graduation gifts. Senior nights. End-of-year celebrations. You're buying teacher gifts, coach gifts, piano teacher gifts — because bless these people, they have shown up for your kids all year.

You're paying summer registration fees, clinic deposits, class sign-ups before they sell out, and then summer travel. You're trying to book hotels, put down deposits, buy flights before they get expensive. And when we add this all up, December is starting to look like a light month.

Just naming these two things — the emotional weight and the financial weight — before we even get to the calendar scheduling part. The fact that it feels like a lot is because it is, Mama. Because it is.

So let's talk about five ways to balance your Maycember. And when I say balance, we're not talking about everything being equal. There's no such thing — that's not real life. We're talking about getting to the end of it and feeling like, "Okay, I'm really proud of how I showed up. I'm grateful for the experiences I had, and I'm not looking back going, I want a do-over."

Tip number one: get it all out of your head and onto the calendar.

The very first thing I want you to do today is get out your calendar and collect every single event, deadline, and obligation for the next six weeks. Go onto the school website. Send some text messages if you don't know when the piano recital is yet. Gather all of it and get it into your calendar.

Text the group chat, check the school apps, open the sports schedule, pull out the class newsletter, get it all onto one calendar so that your brain is not trying to hold all of this.

Now here's the second step that most people skip. Once it's on the calendar, ask yourself: is there anything I need to do or have in order to be ready for it? Do you need a gift? Is there a form? Is there an outfit? A sign? If yes, schedule the prep time right then.

And what's even more beautiful: as you're doing this, if there are things you can order right now, do it right now. Order the gift off Amazon — do those things now. If you can't do it right now, schedule when you're going to do it. If you're supposed to bring treats, schedule the day before to pick them up.

This requires reading the whole thing. Read the fine print. Let me share an example from my own life this last week.

We are in senior year. We have all the senior nights happening. One of them was Senior Night for track, and there were two components. One was these really fun gift bags that all the moms were contributing to. I found these cute mini foam fingers on Amazon and had them ready well over a week and a half in advance. Just sitting here, ready to go.

On the night that we were going to assemble these bags, I found out about the other part — the parents were making fat heads of each of the seniors. You take their senior track picture, turn it into a character, and have it printed on a big sign to hold up at awards night.

I did not see that part right away. There was a group thread I hadn't gone through carefully enough. By the time I finally read through it all, I was one day away from paying an insane amount for shipping to get it in time. As it was, I got it the day before — and that added stress never needed to be there. If I'd just taken the time to read it sooner and read the fine print.

So: get it on the calendar, schedule the prep, and if you can — do it right now.

Tip number two: give yourself full permission to not do everything.

This is not a nice platitude. It's an actual truth. You do not have to do it all.

Back to that track senior night. There was a big group thread, all the moms on there, everyone coordinating contributions, instructions for the custom signs, all the things. Then there was a day when people were meeting at the high school to assemble the bags — whoever could make it.

One mom sent a message into the thread saying, "I can't make it. I'm leaving my contribution on the porch. Is anyone able to just swing by and grab it?"

I wanted to stand up and applaud for this woman. I'm doing it right now publicly. I am so impressed with her confidence to say right there in the text thread: I can't do this part. I need someone to step in. Can I just put it on my porch? Can someone come grab it? Here's my address.

That took courage. That is not dropping the ball. That is being honest and resourceful and trusting her community to help. We need more of that. We need to see each other raise the white flag and say, "Hey, I'm struggling here. Can someone help?"

This idea that we're all trying to act like we've got it figured out all the time, that we can't tell anyone it's hard — it's not helping anybody. We have to stop pretending we have it all together and start letting each other in.

I don't know what your version of that will look like this month. Maybe it's skipping the optional school event. Sending store-bought cookies. Letting your husband or your best friend handle one pickup. Signing up for the easiest thing on the volunteer list. Or replying with a warm but honest "I can't this time." All of that is not only okay — it's real life.

This is not the month to be our most ambitious self in the kitchen. Keep it simple. If there's ever a time to do that, this is it.

While you're at it, build yourself a little Maycember emergency preparedness kit. Buy a few extra gift cards. Grab some nice blank cards and thank-you notes. Pick up a couple of small but thoughtful gifts to have on hand — something that would work for a teacher or a teen. Buy graduation gifts now, before your bandwidth is completely gone or before it's day-of and you're panicking or overspending. I always end up overspending because it's last minute.

Tip number three: schedule real, intentional rest. And there's an important distinction here that doesn't feel good to hear, but it matters. Rest and scrolling are not the same thing.

When you finally get a quiet moment this month, don't let your default be picking up your phone and scrolling. I get it. I do it too. But you finish thirty minutes later — or longer — and you feel exactly as tired as when you started. You don't feel better. In fact, you might feel more tired because scrolling is stimulation dressed up as rest.

Real rest is intentional. One of my personal favorites is giving myself an extra thirty minutes at the end of the day — maybe I put on a face mask, put in my AirPods, and listen to something that fills me back up. Something fun or inspiring that truly allows me to rest. If I can make it even bigger and go to bed earlier, that's real, true rest.

Maybe it looks like scheduling a Sunday afternoon nature walk with the family to slow down and enjoy. Or a Friday movie night on the calendar — pizza, a movie, everyone cuddled up and relaxed. You deserve moments where you can take it in, experience it, rest, absorb. Not just recover.

We need to recharge for sure. But we also want to make sure that battery is optimized — and real rest is what does that.

Tip number four — and I said number four was the last, but there's actually one more thing I want to add: get your to-do list out of your head and into one central place.

Our brains are not filing systems. They're truly not meant to hold your grocery list, your graduation gift reminders, your summer registration deadlines, and also be present at the concert. Nothing gets held well. And then you're like, "What's wrong with me? How did I forget that?" It's because that's not how we're made.

You end up lying awake at 11pm wondering if you forgot something. Let's not do that. Find one central place where everything lives. It does not have to be fancy.

Personally, I use the Reminders app on my phone. I create little categories using titles and emojis so I can see my different lists in one place — separated by kids, by dates, by weeks, however I need. It's just a place that isn't my brain. Whatever works for you: a notes app, sticky notes on the door, a paper planner, a whiteboard in the kitchen. Use it consistently.

The goal is simple: when something comes in, it goes there. Every morning, you check it and see what you need to do that day. What we want is that when you need to find something, you know exactly where to look.

The next six weeks are big. They're busy, they're expensive, they're full. They're all the things. And here's what I want you to hear: you don't have to do it all. You never did.

The things that will matter most when you look back on this season are not whether you made it to every optional event, or whether the cookies were homemade, or whether you said yes to every group chat request. You're going to be most grateful for the time you spent fully present with your people.

Maybe that means you're not on the decorating committee, but you are there — cheering, watching, absorbing every moment. What will matter most is whether you were present for the moments that truly mattered to your family.

There are moments that are actually yours, and there are moments you're being told you need to make time for. You get to choose. Choose the ones that truly matter and protect those. If something is pulling you away from that, that's a great signal to say, "Okay, that's where I need to say no."

And finally — if and when the tears come, whether it's on the elliptical or in the bleachers or in the car ride home — just let them. They mean that we loved something so well that it leaves a mark when it changes.

Maycember is a lot. But you can handle this season. Be intentional. Plan. Schedule. Buy the things ahead of time. Have your emergency preparedness kit ready. If it can be simple, let it be simple. You have got this.