Two weeks ago, I turned 31. I still have two saved drafts I intended to post to celebrate my 30th. (LOL.)
I was once a fairly prolific blogger, as I’m sure most Millennial/Xennial writers who came of age with the Internet and social media were. But as I’ve made the transition from hobbyist writer to professional writer (blegh!), I’ve stopped blogging.
But for my 31st year, I made a commitment to myself (and my therapist) to prioritize self-care. “Self-care” gets thrown around a lot, usually to sell us shit. Like spa days and vacation packages and face masks. (Mmm, capitalism.) But for me, self-care means learning to practice daily actions and behaviors that prioritize my own health and well-being. And beyond that, prioritizing my own joy, wholeness, and peace.
But I’m really bad at self-care, y’all.
You see, I tend to put other people’s needs and feelings before my own. I don’t think this is necessarily bad. Especially because kindness and compassion are daily practices as well. The problem is I offer a disproportionate amount of my time and energy offering kindness to others — and not to myself. And then I burn out. And then maybe I spend five insomnia-addled days holed up in my apartment, procrastinating on writing and e-mails by deep cleaning my apartment and watching YouTube.
IDK, my brain is weird. What I do know is that for most of my life, it’s been so much easier for me to take care of other people than it has been to take care of myself. But I’m 31. But there are some incredibly important things that I would very much so like to achieve and bring into my life in my 30s, but they require a daily self-care practice.
Writing every single day for myself — not for a paycheck or acknowledgement or prestige — is one of the ways I used to practice self-care.
Being open about the messy, funny, boring, ugly truth of my life is one of the ways I used to practice self-care.
But the toxicity and hyper-visibility of social media makes me anxious, so posting on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook (yes, I still have Facebook — I’m 31) no longer really feels like self-care.
So welcome to my new old blog, in which everyday I will write at least one true thing.
See y’all tomorrow.