Practice self-care

How many times have I loaded and unloaded the dishwasher….yes, I know this is a first world problem… the same question as how many times have I changed the bed, made it up, dusted the window sills,  folded the laundry.

The list of repetitious, mundane must-do’s goes on and on. And on.

Every day there is a list.

Doesn’t matter that I am not longer gainfully employed, time has a way of expanding or contracting. It’s the odd day when I get it all done. I can make a load of laundry last for two days.

But then, what is “all?”

It doesn’t take much of an effort to glean from my lists that there is something missing. There is no me.

There is the executor of the list, but there is no me on the list. Nothing on that list that is directed toward me, other than toil or drudgery. It depends on how dramatic I want this to be.

I work with a lovely young woman in the volunteer office at  St. Joe’s who always, always stresses the same message as flight attendants do when they tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. She emphasizes “self-care” something with which most women, most parents, are unfamiliar.  For some, it often means borderline narcissism

The responsibilities of children, the desperate love of those children, requires that you put yourself in the background, last on the list, become a phantom doer for others.

You become the folder of laundry that goes in the drawers of family members, the person who maintains the house, shops, and stores and prepares the meals and then cleans up afterwards, the transporter to events, the attender of games and plays and recitals, the homework helper.  Birthdays and holidays wouldn’t happen without you.

And all this is most probably happening after returning from a job outside the home.  Personal satisfaction is sublimated; joy is not in self but in the other’s happiness and success. Not a bad thing, but it does have its fall out. There is a conscious plan to postpone the things that refer to self, a preference for facilitating the happiness of others.

Before I venture further, this is not about dissatisfaction, rather a rearrangement of values that, as admirable as they are,  does create a sense of habit with unintended consequences.

It is an arrangement that creates a something that lies in the background, a longing for peace and quiet, a good book, a night out where you don’t have to cut up someone’s meat and, strangely enough it continues past the time when the children leave the nest. By that time, you’ve pretty much developed a kind of ascetic life style, forgoing things that adult people, particularly adult women often find engaging.

You know what I mean.  You have a choice, vacuum the rugs or sort through your clothes which probably haven’t been sorted through for what? Maybe 10 years? Which do you choose?  You have worn the same blue car coat for 15 years. You could buy another, but why when it is still serviceable?

You love the reruns of Law and Order that are on in the afternoon, but watching TV in the afternoon is a waste of time when there are other things to do, like, say,  clean out the basement or wash the windows.

You do have some of what I call “good” clothes, the kind that might have been dignified with the title Sunday-Go-To-Meeting clothes in the past.

Those and the five year old mascara and the foundation that has to be mixed with water to flow again become the strategy you use when you have to get dressed up for some occasion.

Spend money on new clothes? Why?  Why, when we need a new — you name it: Car, washing machine, furnace, etc. Makeup? What for?

But, as my friend Rachelle will tell you, these “sacrifices” can come back and bite.

When I got up this morning, knowing that my biggest commitment was to my yoga class, I thought that all I would have to do was find the appropriate flexible clothing.

No problem there since my wardrobe tends toward the flexible and comfy. This translates into sweaters, sweatshirts and turtle neck T-shirts over jeans.

Then I looked in the mirror. Yikes. Who was that old lady?

As I have noted many times before, my morning self closely resembles the picture I have of my great-grandmother…taken after she had died. Did I have time and energy to remedy that which was remediable?

So, apropos of Rachelle and all flight attendants, I decided to engage in some self-care.

Sorting through the jungle of cosmetic products bought God knows when, I found several that were less than a year old and proceeded to gussy up my visage.

Moisturizer, foundation, a little eye shadow to cover up the eternally allergy red lids and some deftly placed eyebrow strokes and I looked almost awake and alive. With a smidgen of lipstick, I looked marginally healthy. Good start for me.

Returning from yoga, it dawned on me that no one noted that I was wearing makeup, most probably because first, no one was looking at me and second, the makeup only made me look normal.

I was hungry, which is nothing new, but, instead of scarfing down anything that was low in weight watcher points. I actually made myself a sandwich and a salad, poured myself a glass of flavored seltzer and ate a human lunch.

Tonight, I will try to do the same. Instead of preparing my spouse’s meal as I eat a yogurt or something with similar point values, I will prepare something for myself that resembles what I would prepare for others.

I know that there are more things that I can do to practice self-care.

There are the stack of books that I want to read, the friends I want to call, the follow through on DIY projects that have been stalled, but I have other priorities pulling at me.

I will try to be more aware of the person who writes and executes my daily lists. I will put her on the list.

At least that is the plan.