on-liberation

[on-liberation]

Self Care is About the Little Things

Self Care is about the little things. I have been really stressed out this week, and honestly the 2 weeks before as well. I’m starting to have ideas about the way things have aligned to create this three week long buildup of events that led to this week, but that’s for another time. 

I wanna talk about self care, but like for real. Not the foo foo self care stuff that’s only surface level and reactionary, like having been struggling emotionally, financially, and/or mentally for the last few weeks, months, or years, and then somebody tells you to do a face mask. And I don’t mean the big, periodic, but intentional self care things either, like meditating, praying, venerating, etc. on a full moon or a new moon. No, I mean the self care you can do every day or week. The little things that refill your power bar moment by moment as it gets drained by the world outside of us.

I mean going on a short, 30 minute walk after your lunch. What if you don’t have an hour-long lunch? Valid. I mean coming home to a messy apartment because your apartment had bed bugs so you had to move to a hotel for 2 weeks and the day you got back (and spent the day moving back 2 weeks’ worth of clothes and toiletries, plus all the many items that would be ruined while your apartment gets heated up to 150 degrees to crisp all the bedbugs–sorry, I digress). After dumping all your things in your apartment, you had to pack for a trip to Catalina Island for Valentine’s Day. Then, when you get back to your apartment full of shit from your hotel stay, you throw your multiple luggage bags down and have to work your full time job. You come home, already tired from working full time, to an apartment that is, quite literally, a shitshow (okay, no shit but you get what I mean). 

I don’t know about you, but when my space is messy, my life is messy. I had so much cleaning and organizing and laundry to do, and when I was at work, I had so much emailing, scheduling, and planning to do. I decided to write down the long list of things I needed to get done at home: unpack all my suitcases, put away all my laundry, put toiletries away, put away all my spiritual supplies, etc. Plus, “rearrange the kitchen, rearrange the bathroom, rearrange the closet.” (When I go in, I go in.) Looking at this huge list of things to do can be overwhelming, but I realize I have to get it out of my head, and on to something I can visualize and tackle one-by-one. Plus, I love crossing things out.

Back to what you’d do if you didn’t have an hour lunch and you just came back from bed bugs and an island trip: You’ve got a lot of things on your to-do list, and maybe some of these things are space renovations. Well, if you were me last night, you would have gone grocery shopping to have an excuse (albeit a reasonable one) to be in the kitchen, because that’s been a space on your list for a minute. You play your favorite album, artist, or playlist that gets you through it (mine is When I Get Home followed by A Seat at the Table, both by Solange) while you put the groceries away and you wash the literal pile of dishes on your sink and stove. (Don’t judge me, I know you’ve been there.) With this good music and being able to visibly see mess disappear, you start to get in a little groove, “What can I do next? How else can I make some mess disappear without too much exertion?” You turn to your messy pantry. You’re getting rid of things you ain’t have no business continuing to hold onto, you put all your seasonings back on one, easily accessible shelf, you reorganize your snacks and ingredients so they make sense and are efficient with space. Hell, you might even spend a few minutes reconfiguring the arrangement of a fruit basket and cereal boxes. You’re in a nice funk! You love that this album/artist/playlist always helps you recenter and find peace (Thank you, Solange). 

You’ve now spent a good part of your evening rearranging and cleaning one thing at a time. You may not have busted out the Clorox and scrubbed every crevice, but you got that pantry looking good again! You finally cleared off the kitchen table that was really just the “I don’t know where else to put this shit” table (same for the top of the microwave). You finally did something with them cardboard and storage boxes in the corner. You step back and marvel at your work. You think, “I actually want to be in this kitchen now!” You have two candles on your table and your favorite album/artist/playlist playing, and you decide to finally sit down and write your first blog post, something you’ve been wanting to do for a while, but didn’t know how to start, and didn’t make time for it. 

But you did this time. After a shitty week, and a shitty 2 weeks before that. The rest of your apartment may still be a shitshow, but at least your bed is clear and your kitchen looks nice. It’s the little things out of this grand event of life. It’s going step by step. That’s self care.