Structure

When I was a kid, I was in a gifted program that was run out of a local historical society. For one day per week, I and the other future disappointments would convene at this museum and do things. Some of it was crap, some of it was useful, and some of it I probably carry with me to this day. +

But the one thing that always stood out to me was that our teacher, Mrs. Honsaker, always let us make our own schedule for the day. We could do activities in any order we wanted. We could eat lunch whenever we wanted.

It was a staggering amount of agency for 10-year-old. And, frankly, more agency than I have had since in my day-to-day life.

For a lot of people, life just…happens, and you try not to fall off. The alarm goes off when it does because you have to go to work. At work, your schedule is largely controlled by meetings that just…appear on your calendar. When you can leave is also usually not completely in your control. And then there’[s the grocery dry shopping, the cooking the cleaning, the maintenance of a life that’s gotten out of control.

In 2020, my MS progressed to a point that I was forced to stop working completely, so all that came to a very abrupt halt. And I was suddenly looking at practically unending free time.

Faced with no schedule, I have become a hit of a hedonist, only doing the things I want to do, and doing them only when I want to do them. I am controlled by my id.

But the problem with that life is that I don’t always think to do what is good for me. I do not seek out self-care. Mostly, I doom-scroll the internet and read. And read. And read.

I’ve read 172 books this year. And, to be fair, I always did say that if I ever had unlimited time, I would read ALL THE BOOKS.

But self-care is real, y’all, and there are things that I can do that actually have a direct impact on my mental health, and those things get largely ignored in favor of the book-dopamine.

So. I’m at a tiny crossroads, because I’m starting a thing tomorrow—a readathon for the American Cancer Society—and to keep that fundraiser top of mind, I was planning to write about what I am reading, and why I am choosing to do this, and the timing of that seemed fortuitous. Since I am gonna try to write more for at least the next thirty days, I thought that, as a experiment, I might add to those posts a “Yesterday’s Self-Care” section, and take that space to pat myself on the back a little for prioritizing my self-care. And getting back to Mrs. Honsaker, if I could be trusted with my own schedule at ten, I can be trusted with it today. So I plan to LIGHTLY schedule self-care time in the mornings. Meditation and writing BEFORE any doom.

Feels healthier.

Thursday, July 30

Yesterday, I meditated for fifteen minutes. I read 284 pages. I made stroganoff for dinner. I did an evening zoom call with friends.

Go me!

Love y’all.