Everyone and their brother will tell you about the importance of self-care. The poet (and complete bad-ass) Audre Lorde once said, “self-care is not self-indulgence. It’s self-preservation.” It should be mentioned that was Lorde a prolific writer/poet and an activist long before her time. She was outspoken and often controversial. When you she wrote this quote (which ends in “and that’s an act of political warfare), she was battling cancer for the second time. But she believed in not only finding one’s own power, one’s own voice, but finding one’s own self.

Self-care has always been difficult for me. I worry about spending money on myself, when I could take my kids out to some adventure park instead. I worry about the time it takes that keeps me from doing other things like my writing or the cleaning of my house. I worry about spending time on myself when I don’t know that spending time on myself is worth it. I don’t know that I am worth it. Self-care is selfish to me because I consider it time spent on myself; a person I will never look in the mirror and say things like ‘beautiful’, or ‘worthy’. Those words, especially when describing my own self, is not possible for me to say. I can’t feel it, therefore, I can’t say it.

In the past I have been guilty of spending a lot of money on products in the hopes of easily making myself beautiful; that I am taking care of myself. Usually, the products make my skin worse, gives me headaches, or just doesn’t work for me. Those products then end up in my bathroom to collect dust and eventually be thrown out. So I stopped doing that for a very long time.

Instead, in my quest to practice self-care, I created a large journal of recipes, tricks and tips from around the world, diy projects, exercise routines, and verifiable safe websites that I could research and study in the belief that one day they would come in handy. It has recipes of juices for every ailment. It has diy projects for every skin problem that I could one day have. It has a list of recommended music for a playlist to exercise to. It has what those in the blue zones do to live past a hundred years old (despite the fact that the idea of living past eighty gives me anxiety – I have lived enough lives, I don’t need to do it until I am a hundred). It’s a book that I can add things to do as I research them, and then flip the page and look at another topic. It gives me a chance to research and think about possibilities without actually having to do anything. It sits on a dusty shelf and I take it out once in awhile to either add to it, or see if there is any inspiration in it for me to tackle.

Last night my daughter had a sleep-over and my boys were planning their own night. The boys night included pizza and some atrocious movie, and since I don’t like either of those things, I decided it was a time to indulge in a night of self-care. I decided that maybe being a little selfish and doing what all those people in my book said was so important wouldn’t be so bad. It was not what I expected.

First, having a night of self-care or a night of self-indulgence, takes a lot of planning and logistics. For instance, do you take your bath first, do you nails first, or do you start with the top (your face) and work yourself down? These were all questions. And every article I read about doing something like taking a night for yourself stated clearly that you have to have everything at your fingertips before you even begin. So there I was, scrambling around my home trying to put everything I was going to need in my little bathroom, and making all these diy scrubs and face masks to put on my skin. The goal: relaxation and beautiful skin. It was not what I expected.

For instance, did you know that putting the oil on your skin that is in all the body scrub recipes makes the bath very slippery? Did you know that putting tea bags on your skin for too long burns? Did you know putting a face mask on while taking your bath means that it melts right off your face and falls everywhere? Did you know that cleaning up after a night of indulgence takes more time then the time you spend indulging?

I did learn other things. The most important – I am not a complicated person. I don’t need a whole body self-care routine. A nice bath, a simple scrub (even though it makes the bath slippery), cleaning and moisturizing my face is enough. I will admit that the spots between my toes have never been cleaner. But the truth is that I didn’t need a checklist taped on my mirror; it took something away from the relaxation. Ultimately, what I need is a period of time where no one is asking anything of me. I can listen to my music and relax, and I am not forced to find a place in my house to hide because my boys are listening to something violent and loud. I just need thirty minutes to myself. Having soft skin afterwards is simply a bonus.

Like I said, taking time for myself isn’t easy for me. And certainly, planning time for self-care like it’s a second D-day campaign isn’t the solution. But maybe there is a middle ground I could do every once in awhile. I will never be the kind of person who shouts at the rooftops how important self-care is even though I do see the benefits. I will never be the kind of person who can take time for herself without guilt. I can’t go and spend money on facials and professional procedures, (and not just because the idea of someone touching me is abhorrent). It’s just who I am.

I think in the long run, it isn’t about being selfish or even how much time you take for yourself. I think it’s about finding your own comfort zone. I think it’s about more than a spa-day; I think it’s about finding things that make you happy. I like to paint; and that to me is self-care. I like to write; and to me that is self-care. I like to clean, I like to walk around stores without spending any money, and I like to put music on that no one else in my life thinks is enjoyable. This is just as much self-care as spending the night in my small bathroom putting stuff on my skin and cleaning between my toes.

Another thing I think I am learning is that self-care is self-driven. It has to be about what I want. What I think is important. What I feel like taking the time to do. There are influencers, models, actress who will all tell you about the things they do to stay beautiful; and that is absolutely fine – it’s kind of their job. But what I need to do is pay attention to what I need today, in this moment. Listening to Ursine Vulpine sing about pain and write this blog was what I needed today. And yes, there are a thousand things I should probably be doing. But I have to get better about saying ‘this moment is for me’.

I could spend a whole post on my background and my parents and dive into why self-care is so hard for me. I had a mother who never took time for herself – she was too busy trying to be superwoman. I had a father who only took time for himself. Did that influence me? Probably. Did the guilt of all the episodes I have had where I couldn’t clean, where I couldn’t do the things my family needed me to, be a part of this? Probably. Is my husband’s questioning of everything I do and where exactly I am in my headspace part of it? Probably. Is my therapist vacillating between the importance of rest but not too much rest inside of me? Probably.

What I wish someone had told me years ago was that life is about what you need it to be. There is no set of rules; other than those that our judicial system are adamant about. There is no schedule that must be followed day in and day out. There is room for your own interpretations. There is room, even if you don’t think there is, to carve out a moment to breathe and focus on yourself. And yes, you may feel selfish. I do every time. But no one ever told me to do it anyway. That one I had to figure out on my own. And it wasn’t what I expected.