What We Need is #SelfCare ~ @AuthorKristina

 

As we head into 2022 - gah! How are we in 2022 already? - resolutions and plans and plots are afoot. Just about every post I see on social media is about how people are going to slay the new year, bring it to its knees, and in all other ways kill it. 

I’m over here just promising myself that I’ll survive. And try to thrive. But I think my thriving is going to look a little different because if the past two years of pandemic life have taught me anything its that we can’t control everything. And we shouldn’t want to. Plan and hope and dream about the absolute best that life can be? Absolutely. Be willing to compromise to save a bit of our sanity when things don’t go according to our well-thought-out plans? For definite. 

During the first year of the pandemic my focus was on not letting the pandemic defeat me. Publish books while homeschooling the kiddo and sanitizing my house (and GROCERIES) after every trip out? I prided myself on it. I went to bed every night exhausted from working the day job, and still getting those 3,000 word evenings in, and keeping the kiddo up to date with online school, and sewing masks, and cleaning masks, and doing three loads of laundry every day because the clothes we wore out we didn’t wear in…but in the midst of all of that care I was giving to everyone else, I forgot about giving care to myself. 

Read a book? Pfft, who has time to read when they’re cleaning constantly. Watch a favorite show? More like ‘napped through it’. And the words were making it onto the page but they weren’t great words and when the time came to edit…it was a whole new ballgame. 

I hit the wall last summer. I just couldn’t do it any longer. I not only didn’t want to wipe down the groceries coming into the house, I didn’t want to cook or clean or do laundry or any of the other eleventy things that we women are supposed to love doing. I didn’t want to deal with the kiddo’s school, or my work, or writing, or cleaning, or coming up with a meal plan. I just didn’t want to. I had to take a step back from doing everything because it was making me miserable. 

And now we have variants and cases are climbing and schools might shut down … and I’m seeing all of these ‘I’m going to slay 2022, here’s my list of 5 bajillion things I’ll do this year’ and it’s making me tired. And a little cranky. So instead of sharing my list of things to do, here’s what I’m not going to do in ‘22: 

• I’m not going to clean instead of read 
• I’m not going to do that twelfth load of laundry instead of taking a walk outside
• I’m not going to cook when I don’t feel like it (take out can be just as healthy)
• I’m not going to forego a coffee date with a friend or a movie date with RadioMan because I haven’t sanitized the house in 12 hours

I started to prioritize me - reading time, writing time, binge-watching time, time to exercise, time with RadioMan, time with bebe, just time in general - and I started to find myself again. Not the stressed out, annoyed, short-tempered mom-bot, but me. ME. The Kristina who likes to go do things (movies, nature walks, shopping, spa days). The Kristina who has something to say and says it best in her books. The Kristina who can listen to a friend who needs a shoulder. The Kristina who smiles for no reason at all. 

I like that Kristina. I’ve been missing that Kristina. As I prioritized me, starting in small little 20 minute reading chunks, I found a balance I’ve been missing for a while. That balance helped me see that the laundry can wait, that fifth sanitization of the doorknobs probably isn’t necessary, but listening to bebe’s long-winded ‘listen to what happened in Health Class today’ probably is. Prioritizing me and giving myself time has improved the words I’m putting on the page, and has re-opened the vein of story ideas that I’d bottled up in favor of maniacal cleaning. It’s made me a better wife and mom. A better friend.

So what am I going to do no that I’m seeing all of these ‘win 2022’ social media posts? I’m going to protect my writing time. I’m going to read that book I’ve been meaning to read. I going to binge that new show and take that walk and do at-home mani-pedis with bebe and. . .I’m going to prioritize ME. I’m going to get the sleep I need. I’m going to write the books I want to write. I’m going practice more self-care in 2022 - and probably get my first spa-pedi in a couple of years, and I’m still going to set goals and hope for the best. . .but I’m not going to stress if what I envision as ‘the best’ takes just a little longer to get here. Because while the waiting is the hardest part, being present in my life is the most important.