What do you mean it's been over four months since my last post? It's summer vacation, baby! Time to relax and—what do you mean I'm not in school? That's been my whole life! What do you mean that's not an excuse to procrastinate like I'm a student?
Oh well. I can still chill to the max all cool and relaxed while working full time. A little ~self care~ will keep my heartbeat steady when life decides to do donuts in a Denny's parking lot.
But chillin' to the max all cool and relaxed takes work, which I never realized given that the self care isn't supposed to feel like work.
How do you even begin to indulge in ~self care~? I guess it starts with buying a fresh apple scented hand lotion or a 24k gold face mask or a detox cleanse or a foot mask. (A foot mask? Jesus Christ do those work?). For the record, I know ~self care's~ broad spectrum includes both wellness AND health. I'm not knocking people who stick to a workout regimen and signed off on a live full of fitness. I'm not judging people who enjoy the anti-inflammatory properties of lavender. I'm just trying to figure out what ~self care~ means to me, and if it actually makes me feel.. good? (better?) about myself, even for a moment. I've bought subscription boxes with the typical ~self care~ products, face masks and body scrubs and bath bombs and many a moisturizer. They've all done their job, some less than others, but I never felt that using those products, even everyday, would get me closer to being the best me I can be, or something along those lines. So, I switched to more unconventional methods. The quirky kind. The romantic kind.
It started with the near viral shower orange method, where you eat an orange in the shower. You tear apart the peels of an orange like a kid on Christmas morning and let the juices flow down your hands and wrap around your dripping naked body. It's the all ages version of a shower beer. Primal and cathartic, it felt like drinking a cold drink in a patch of shade on a 90-degree day, not caring about the ice slipping down your chin because your body is already laminated in sweat. The experience gave me a space to think, to overthink, which I personally don't consider ~self care~. How am I supposed to be my happy and thriving self when I'm stressed out about what's almost definitely nothing? I also tried eating a peach in a sudsy bathtub (an idea of my own making). Got the same results.
One time at Target I considered buying a succulent and a tiny fern growing kit because that's just the curse of that store's invisible hand but also because I thought it might make me a more put together, feel good person, qualities that fall under the ~self care~ umbrella. Then I realized I don't want to make space for a plant. Plus, my cat would probably get to it before I felt the effects of its ~self care~. The same train of thought crossed my mind when I saw a friend post about their herb garden. Meditation, maybe? Eh. I'd have to download an app or buy a yoga mat or one of those Tibetan singing bowls so I don't fall asleep or overthink again. Maybe I should start small and try ~self care~ marketed products instead, again. I could buy one of those jade rollers or aromatherapy diffusers or those gummy multivitamins that are supposed to help with stress. However, thinking about using these things only upset me. Are these things expected to be used so I can feel my most DNA test turns out I'm 100% that bitch? If buy everything it'll be good to go and I'll be all set, right? I thought ~self care~ wasn't supposed to take any work. Isn't that the point? Why do businesses make this feel so exhausting?
And another thing why is all the self care marketed for women? It's not fair that men get to just be and I have to be smooth accommodating polite grateful patient calm presentable glowing eligible for free two day shipping and men get to just be. Why is inaction the default for them? It's not fair. MAN, BUMP ALL OF THI—
"Hey, I choose to be all those things on my own! I do it because I want to and it's how I choose to express myself! I'm doing it so I feel good about myself!" Listen, you do you; that's awesome and admirable. You’ve taken the tools designed to mold you in a certain way, and used them to break through into your own unique agency-filled self.
But you're lying if you haven't felt at least one coat tug of pressure about what your gender is expected to be. Those tools joined a list of actions we have to perform in order to feel even a passing thought of acceptance and therefore contentment, maybe happiness. Even to those who intentionally wear no makeup to make a brave statement at some point you had to lie to yourself that you never wanted to fit into your expected societal norm. Unless, maybe, your lifestyle allowed you to grow up shamelessly and unapologetically every day of your life. If that's the case, how does it not get exhausting? Is this patriarchal bargaining? I don't know. I don't even know if I know what that term means. Ugh.
Shit, didn't mean to spill some gender binary norms in my post about ~self care~. Just let me be messy and trust I can clean it all up afterwards.
It just feels weird that large companies are telling me what constitutes ~self care~. I wish I didn't believe that being my best chillin' relaxin' to the max self involves corporate-made ~self care~ products. It doesn't matter if they work for some and not for others. The message is all the same: For the low price of Treat Yourself you can indulge in the idea that you're solving the problems we created for you.
Anyway, I wish I could be my best self by doing nothing (without looking or sounding or feeling depressed), and in some ways I can. If I like wearing minimal to no makeup everyday then I'll do it. If I don't like making my bed despite my brain telling me it will give me the illusion of putting something together, I won't. I could buy an $13 bath bomb from Lush next week or some CBD oil from a Family Video and nobody would know unless I posted about it and what kind of hypocrite would that make me? Does that make me a hypocrite? I don't know. Maybe I'll just eat a starfruit in a hot tub and call it ~self care~.