Five minutes of self care, every day.
This is my homework.
Don’t laugh; it says so, right there, bottom third of the weekly report page for Massage Lower:
Five minutes of self care
- Sunday:
- Monday:
- Tuesday:
- Wednesday:
- Thursday:
- Friday:
- Saturday:
This really shouldn’t be hard, should it? Five minutes. Every day. That’s all. Five minutes is nothing. It takes the Boychick five minutes just to… wait, he doesn’t do anything in five minutes. Which probably explains why it is so hard.
Last week, I turned in my report with that section blank. I wrote at the top: “Totally forgot to do/record this”. The week before, I bloviated (which is latin for bullshited — bullshat?). This week, it’s Sunday (class is on Thursday), and I seriously can’t think of a single thing to put down. Showered by myself? Well, I managed that once, anyway. Stayed up way too late reading Doctor Who fanfic (again)? That might not actually count as self-care. I made an appointment with my ND to go over my lab results so she’d call me in a new script, and I could stop stealing thyroid from my son; is that self-care?
Yoga would count, if I had anywhere in this cluttered hard-floored tiny (but beloved!) house to do it in. Music would count, if I could have five minutes where the Boychick let me play without rushing over to strum the strings or yelling at me to stop. Reading might count, if it were in time set aside for my own pleasure and rejuvenation, not stolen in moments supposed to be spend with the family, used as a barrier and a hiding place and a retreat in a way, after watching my father build himself a better life in fiction far away from us, that I promised I would never do. Hell, taking time to do my nails or my hair or my makeup would probably count, if I did that crap, which I don’t and don’t care to. Blogging might count, if I could figure out how to make that work. The teacher is amazingly flexible; our selves are amazingly flexible. Almost anything would count, all it would take is five minutes, consciously and deliberately spent on me, on doing something loving to me, taking care of me.
And I can’t think of a thing to put down.
What is it about self-care that is so hard? I swore I wouldn’t be a mother who lost herself. I really thought I was doing well; I’m all about benign neglect, I have a life and an identity outside of my child, I’ve never needed time apart to feel I was standing on my own. I thought things were going fine, that self care would (hah!) take care of itself.
And then I got smacked upside the head with having to actually record said supposed self-care. And I draw a blank.
It’s not like I have lost myself: I’m still here, still moderating for Mothering, still reading my own books, still pursuing life as a student, still keeping my own friends, still referring to myself as “me” and not “mommy”. But the self that is still here is just existing, just being dragged along by and dragging along the rest of my life; she is not neglected, exactly, but not being nurtured, either. And the point of this assignment in massage school (and why I chose and love this school) is: how can the god in me touch the god in you if the god in me is starving, thirsty, bedraggled, weary, and desperately in need of touch herself?
This must be related to my last post, which was about blogging but at base was really about balance. What does a life in balance look like? What does a life with five minutes of easily recordable self-care a day look like? I know the idea of “having it all” is a myth, that real life is always going to be saying no to some paths so we can say yes to others; life doesn’t have to be compromised, uncomfortable, constrained, but it does have to be finite. But surely it must be possible to live this life, and be able to set aside 35 minutes a week, without needing to be the mythical (the misogynistic) Supermom… right?
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
What’s the boychick’s father up to these days?
I hope I’m not being too personal by asking that, but can’t he spend some “quality time” with the boychick while you go and have five minutes?
Who puts the boychick to bed, or does he not have a bed time as yet? If he does, can Mr. Arwyn put him to bed while you go into another room (if you have one) or outside (if you don’t) and take five minutes of self care?
He’s around. Took the Boychick this morning, when he woke up at 8am, and let me wake up on my own at 11:15am. Helped keep the Boychick off me so I could write these posts, and catch up on my blogs (another three+ hours). He would absolutely be up to taking the little one for a while for me to have my five minutes; it’s not a matter of it not being possible, it’s a matter of my not having figured out when and how to make it happen. It’s not really the five minutes, it’s spending five minutes caring for me. He and I aren’t very good at scheduling and following through, though he would be there in a flash if I were able to, in my own mind, say “Time for me now!”
(Re: sleeping, we all three go to bed together [and The Man reads to us while I nurse the Boychick]. Which we really ought to do now, given how late it is and how the little one is acting…)
I found that I felt life was being sucked out of me lately (and into my computer). I tend to use the computer as an escape, but it really isn’t self-care. I took a break from it for a week (just checking in periodically, but only for short increments). I realized that in order to care for ourselves we have to do a trade-off. Cut out something you don’t really have to do so that you can do something that refreshes you.
What’s the definition of self-care?
We’re in similar seasons of life and I recognize the challenges of taking care of myself. After being outraged, I giggle at my single, childless sister’s suggestion to “take care of yourself–if you’re not healthy you can’t take care of others.”
Read blogs and writing posts qualifies as self-care as I would define it. I need to express myself and think about something besides work and family.
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