I Didn’t Go to the Gym Today (And Other Notes on Self Care)

It’s 8:30 a.m. on a Friday.

Typically, by this time, I’m on a rowing machine or walking on a treadmill at a 7 percent incline with a 25-pound sandbag on my back.

Before my hour-long fitness class.

I do these things because my brain needs them. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. I tell myself that it’s self care. It is. But deep down I know that it’s also some fucked up combination of therapy and vanity that gets me there, in addition to a genuine love for it all. It’s some sort of obsession to try to be a superlative that I am not and will not be. I see posts from people doing this “Hard 75” challenge and wonder why I don’t have the constitution to do it myself.

Today was different, though. I moved to get out of bed and felt a snap in my left flank. The pain radiated across my spine and into my tailbone and I felt like I was in labor again. That on-all-fours, everything-spasms sort of labor that comes from sunny-side-up babies. Still, I got up. To wake the babies — they’re 10 and 9 now — and make lunches.

I got up. And then I put myself back down, saved from the ride to school by a love who’s had this sort of pain before.

Empathy wears a not so subtle beauty.

I put myself back down.

And then I thought of all the ways I was failing by not being on a rowing machine or walking that 7 percent incline with that weight on my back. The self-talk was absurd. I knew it. But I didn’t know how to stop it.

Like most “modern moms,” I carry the weight of a day, every day. Work, meetings, making those lunches, picking up the kids, school projects, little league, gymnastics, trying to make money but not spend too much of it. Deal with an ex-husband whose methods don’t align with yours. Text your friends back. Send an email about a charity event. What is that smell in the boy’s room? Have a social life. Don’t drop the ball. Take your supplements. Disinfect everything or else everyone’s going to get sick. Post the pretty parts to social media. Don’t drop the ball. Leave the ugly out (see my third-grade photo here). Share your world, but not the real one. Be politically engaged. Rail against apathy. Forget one ingredient and blow the whole macros-balanced Instant Pot meal idea. Order Chipotle via Postmates. Regret not being more with it. Call your mother. Send a birthday card. Watch Hulu at 9 p.m. instead of reading that book you’ve been meaning to read. Remind everyone about everything ad nauseam until you die. Hamsters, meet wheels.

Right?

Wrong.

I’m going to throw this out there at the risk of sounding like a (wait for it) bitch. We’re all just trying to keep up with each other. And its’ making us crazy.

And tired.

And angry.

And hurt. Mentally and physically.

According to a recent Forbes article, 42 percent of millennial-aged mothers believe that “most advertising and marketing is not geared toward women like me.” What’s more, 90 percent of millennials prefer “real and organic,” instead of “perfect and packaged” posts.

Why, then, are our feeds full of packaged content, just like our food?

I don’t have the answers.

I’ll tell you, though, that I disabled my Facebook account the other day. I was tired of the noise. Still, I found myself clicking over to the app at an embarrassing frequency. It was a lesson in habits, in obsession, in inanity. Obviously, I reinstated Facebook to post this, but I don’t know yet whether or not I’ll be engaged there.

By now, we’ve all seen that viral video about womanhood, right? The one where Cynthia Nixon lists all of the contradictions that go with our chromosomes. It’s powerful.

And sad.

So here’s this: Give yourself a break. I write that phrase so that I can read it over and over and over again. You’re not going to be everything to everyone. Ever. Read your book. Watch your Hulu crime drama. Hard 75. Don’t. Post the pretty photos. Post the messy ones, too. Postmate the shit out of dinner when you need to.

Like the beauty in empathy, there’s splendor in honesty.