MICHELLE DENISE JACKSON

I went to be at 2:15am last night. 2:30am the night before. 8am the night before that. 5am the night before that. Please don’t ask what I do until that time. You will be painfully unimpressed. (OK, fine — A lot of TV, YouTube, and mindless Internet rabbit holes.)

Do I feel like an insane person? Yes.

When the COVID-19 crisis escalated to the lockdown phase in March, I was pretty intentional about making sure I maintained a sense of “normalcy,” despite the fact that we were all social distancing at staying at home. I tried to make sure I woke up around my normal time, that I went on walks a few times a week, that I stood outside and got fresh air everyday, and that I went to bed at a reasonable time.

And then… Well, we all know what happened — and what is still happening. Between the deplorable and catastrophic government response to COVID-19 here in the U.S. and the BLM/M4BL uprising, that sense of “normalcy” has completely been shattered. Nothing about this is normal. Nothing in me wants to normalize it. And especially after the uprising, I’ve just realized how “normal” was already what we called being complacent/complicit in deeply fucked up systems.

Plus, I think there’s something about it being summer (too damn hot!), still feeling the urgency to stay my ass inside (very damn important!), and the overwhelming sense of WTF-ness happening in the world around us (too damn much!).

Normal just isn’t really in the cards anymore. And won’t be for a very long time. So it’s been difficult for me to feel like having a “normal” routine is a necessity at this point. Even though I know I’m being silly, because it absolutely still should be.

Bitches gotta sleep.

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.