bit by bit...

alternate title: Girl, blank your blank!

I have been agonizing over words to place in this space. At times, I will sit, cursor flashing, my mind completely blank. I want to draw from a never-ending well of ways to remind you to take care of and show up for yourself, when the reality is that there are many days when my own head is barely bobbing above water.

Self-nurturing may be vital, but it’s a little-discussed fact that self-care can be exhausting. We are so many (many) chapters into The Series of Unprecedented Events, and for so many of us, it feels as though we don the heaviest of boots, traveling through knee-deep mud from dawn til dusk. We’ve got nothing left.

My very favorite thing to do is wash my face. There was a time when the realization that climbing out of bed meant warm water and my face brush motivated me to get up and face the day with excitement. The same could be said as evening rolled around– another opportunity to take warm water to my face and follow it with creams and vials of liquid magic– yes, please! I don’t know when it happened, but one day I accepted that I was simply too tired to truly wash my face, and suddenly, far too long of crappy skincare and neglect took their toll.

This isn’t about skincare, though, not really. It’s about seeing, accepting, and embracing our momentary limits at a time when every motivational sentiment will tell us to reach for our dreams and never stop. Dream + Do. That’s all well and fine, when it’s well and fine. Sometimes your girl is really fucking tired and just needs to not. So, for quite a while, I didn’t.

I didn’t take care of my skin.

I didn’t read anything.

I wrote nothing.

I watched nothing.

I didn’t make time for any hobbies.

I didn’t.

And the longer that went on, the more tired I became. The longer I avoided all of the things, the bigger they seemed as they loomed off in the distance.

One day, still incredibly tired, I got up and I washed my face.

If the muddy-grossness of it all has you feeling spent, too, I see you. Even though I have no life-changing wisdom to rip you straight out of a funk and breathe fire into your soul, I can offer you a face cloth and some lovely night cream. I can offer to help you change the sheets (everything feels better with clean sheets), and I can help to stock your home with your favorite beverages. None of these things changes the world beyond our walls, but they are not nothing.

Whatever your thing is, that small routine thing you love to do and can’t seem to these days… It’s time.

There’s nothing wrong with us, you or me, when we just can’t for a bit. The best thing about a bit, though, is it’s pretty little. Nobody is going to show up and wash our face for us (or you know, whatever your thing is… and listen, as much as I love a good facial, part of the face washing routine I love is me doing it.)

Start small. Choose your thing. Have grace, but slowly move forward and find the will again. It turns out the looming awful up ahead is mostly made of shadow anyhow. The things we’ve put off that slowly begin to feed our dread– we’re capable of taking them on when the time is right. (and trust me, it will feel really great too.)

We cannot do much for the wars and insanity raging beyond our walls, but we can slowly–bit by bit– work through the heaviness fogging up our own heads.