I want to retire the phrase "self care."
Not because the underlying idea is wrong. The underlying idea is correct and necessary. But the phrase has been so completely captured by candle companies and wellness influencers that it has stopped meaning anything. Self care now means a bath bomb and a face mask and a $40 candle, on a Saturday night you don't have, in a house where someone is still going to need you in twenty minutes.
That is not self care. That is a small purchase.
Here's what actually keeps me from cracking. None of it is glamorous. All of it is real.
Going to bed earlier than I think I need to.
This is the single highest-leverage thing in my entire life. If I am in bed by 10pm I am a different human the next day. Patient. Funny. Able to handle the third request for milk before 7am. If I am up until midnight I am a person who is technically present but actually a husk.
This is not negotiable for me anymore. The Instagram scroll, the show I'm "in the middle of," the dishes I could do in the morning. None of it is worth the cost. I would rather wake up to a messy kitchen as a rested person than wake up to a clean kitchen as a wreck.
Eating something actually nutritious before noon.
Not coffee. Not toast. A real thing with protein in it. Eggs. Greek yogurt. Leftover chicken. I will eat dinner leftovers at 9am if that's what's in the fridge. Whatever it takes to not be running on caffeine and crumbs by 11.
This sounds like a wellness influencer thing and it is the opposite. It is just a basic acknowledgment that I cannot make good decisions for five other humans if my own blood sugar is in the basement.
Putting one thing on the calendar a week that is just for me.
Not a class. Not an event. Just a block of time that is mine. A walk. A coffee somewhere quiet. An hour at the library. It doesn't have to be productive or restorative or instagrammable. It just has to be mine.
The trick is putting it on the calendar before the week fills up. If it's not on the calendar it will not happen. The week will absorb it like a sponge.
Saying no to one thing I would normally say yes to.
Every week, one no. The class party I don't have to volunteer for. The favor I can't actually do this week. The text that doesn't need an immediate answer. I am working on this and I am bad at it and I am getting better.
The interesting thing about saying no is that the world does not end. Nobody actually gets mad. The thing gets handled by someone else or it doesn't get handled and life continues. The catastrophic consequences I was avoiding by saying yes mostly do not exist.
Telling my partner what I need, in actual sentences.
Not hints. Not "I'm fine." Not waiting for him to notice. Actual sentences. "I need an hour by myself this weekend." "I need you to handle bedtime tonight without me being involved." "I need you to ask me how I'm doing because I'm not great this week."
This was hard because I had a whole story about how if I had to ask, it didn't count. That story is incorrect. Asking counts. Asking is the entire skill. The people who get their needs met are the people who say what they need, out loud, to the actual person who can do something about it.
The big one: lowering the bar.
The cleanest, fastest, most underrated thing I do for myself is just decide the bar is lower. The kids had cereal for dinner once a week, fine. The bathroom is not spotless, fine. The thank you note went out late, fine. The Halloween costume came from Amazon, fine.
The version of motherhood where everything is high-effort and homemade and beautifully documented is a version somebody invented to sell things. It is not the actual job. The actual job is keeping small humans alive and reasonably well-adjusted while also being a person yourself.
You are allowed to do it in the cheapest, fastest, most ordinary way and still be doing it well.
That's the honest version of self care. Sleep, food, time, no, words, and a lower bar. No candle required.