The Essence of Self-Care
hi there, babe,
whew, what a week "off" it's been for me! i've been traveling with 4 year old diego and 1 year old ramona to visit family down south (#minivanlife) and i can't tell you how much i missed moving with and writing to you. it was just a week & change away from work, normalcy and brooklyn, but it felt like a month and i'm soooo stoked to be back!
why such a time warp? well, that's because we decided that my husband would stay behind to work, and i was la jefa/solo parent for the week. i'm forever indebted to my mother and sister for being my trusty sidekicks on the road, but even with the strength of 4 women, KIDS ARE SO MUCH WORK. i love my littles beyond the sun, and we are so much closer having had such adventures together, but i am more aware than ever of the extreme privileges of having both childcare and a hands-on partner.
i'm also now very aware of the fragile importance of self-care. while i wouldn't say i have much "me time" in my normal life (there have been exactly zero manicures or margaritas with the girls since about mid-2019), i do have a few child-free hours every day to teach, clean my house and walk around without someone literally clinging to my body. i now see how crucial those precious hours are to my sense of self and balance because it turns out it is damn near impossible, in the presence of one's young children, to write cohesive emails, read anything longer than a headline, have one's personal space respected without being booped, prodded, tackled, or clawed in the face, or finish thoughts.
and driving? holy crap. we had the immense luxury of an in-car dvd player and chewable dramamine, but even so, had my sister not been there to act as aunty, tortilla chip provider, carrier of tote bags and tiny people and sanity-keeper, i think the children and i would be cross-eyed and crying on the side of the road somewhere living off of cheese puffs and ditchwater.
anyway, all this is to say that i'm happily back to my regular teaching schedule this week, and i have a few words for you today about what self-care really looks like and my favorite way to do it.
the power of a shower
i think the term "self-care" has been misconstrued as of late (by the very privileged and the marketing teams whose job it is to sell things to them) to mean indulgence and luxury when really, stripped down, self-care means setting and honoring good boundaries. alongside those boundaries come practices - rituals, even - that set us up to feel better, present and future, and hopefully give us something nice to look back on when we think about the past.
as a working mother of two very young children, my self-care is best summed up by one ritual whose power i didn't even recognize until it became a scarce commodity: a morning shower. i know that not showering is abhorrent to many, far beyond the reality of most child-free people, and that struggling to find the time to perform daily ablutions is somewhat particular to early motherhood, but i also know many of us struggle with work/life balance, boundaries, and feeling like we're spreading ourselves too thin.
i used to be an evening shower-er because i've always had very active jobs and like to go to bed clean, but now that doesn't work because a post-dinner/bath/bedtime/dishes shower would wake up the baby (which we certainly must not do). and i've noticed lately that i'm simply a calmer, happier, less snippy and more satisfied person on the days when i shower sometime before noon. i don't know why this is, but it seems to be true, and it means i'm literally a better mother and human when i recognize that my family will survive without me in their immediate vicinity for 20 minutes every day, even if the baby is crying and the floor is dirty and someone lost a dinosaur.
not for nothing, i love water, and a shower is a practice of renewal, self-love, and solitude (if i'm lucky).
what about you? what's your practice or ritual (the simpler the better) that keeps you sane? hit reply and share with me!
that's it for now, babes. stay cool & keep pulsing!
with love & planks,
annie
