Breaking news: after approximately one year, triple the number of diaper changes, countless sleepless nights, approximately one million two hundred and fifty-two dishes and piles of laundry, I booked an appointment at the salon.
And I got my hair cut.
And damn.
I am just here to say: if it’s been a minute, go get your hair cut.
Leave the to-do list that is, in fact, never going to be complete. It’s kind of what life is. The endlessness of it all.
Order in dinner if it messes with your schedule. Or serve the kids cereal. They’ll be okay. They’ll probably welcome it.
Don’t wait until you’ve hit a goal weight.
Don’t wait until you really, really don’t see yourself when you catch your reflection in the mirror.
Just go.
Take the Pilates class. Do the pottery event with your friends. Make spontaneous plans to meet at the dive bar. Get your nails done. Go wander the aisles of Marshalls, and don’t only browse the kids racks.
Self-care doesn’t need to be a trip to Paris. It doesn’t need to look like a weekend away at a day spa. It doesn’t need to be a designer bag or an overpriced meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant.
It doesn’t need to be boastful. It can be quiet.
In fact, it should be, if it really fills you up.
It should just be whatever that thing is that makes you feel like yourself.
Not just you inside motherhood.
But you. The girl you were long before.
Sometimes a little pick-me-up can work wonders to restore, to refresh. To keep traveling forward at 110 miles an hour, caring for and tending to everyone else in your orbit.
Because hey, there are meals to prepare and laundry to fold. Friends to check in on, family members to make plans with, calendars to update and bills to be paid. Work to be done. Emails to answer. A dog to be walked, a class trip to help plan. A marriage to pour into. Children to raise.
But without you, babe, it’s all falling apart.
So don’t go totally falling apart on yourself.
Love on you. Work on you. Care for you, too.
I think that’s what they mean when they coined that phrase: treat yourself.