Self-Care, a Long Overdue Experiment

Sezane blouse (similar)
Zara shorts (similar)
Birkenstock sandals
Ellen James handbag
Mango hat
Vintage belt (similar)
Elizabeth Lyn Jewellery necklace (c/o)
Linjer ring (c/o)
Madewell rings
Location: Propileon 21 – Athens, Greece

I remember distinctly how I felt the night we took these photos. We’d only been in Athens for eight hours. After sleeping for only three on the plane ride, I was practically giddy with jet lag as we navigated the familiar but foreign streets of Koukaki on our way to Aeropagus Rock. We planned to take sunset photos there, with with Acropolis Hill in the background. I pushed myself all through that day, despite my exhaustion, because I was so happy to be in Athens that sleep seemed like an after-thought – something I could do when my vacation was over and I was finished having fun.

(We never did get the photos on Aeropagus Rock, a slippery outcropping that was infinitely more crowded on a September evening than on the March morning when we last visited. After a young man fell on top of me, narrowly avoiding causing me serious injury, we willingly called it a day and found a pretty door in the neighbourhood for our shoot. That’s personal growth for me.)

I am notorious for doing that – for pushing myself to do just one more thing, sacrifice sleep for one more hour, workout just a little bit harder. All in aid of doing more, experiencing more, enjoying more. I persistently tell myself that I can rest “later,” but later never comes. In the week before we left for Athens I was feeling rundown, which I blamed mostly on my crushing work schedule. I tried to slow down and experiment with the concept of self-care, a buzzword that I hear so often but clearly fail to fully understand. Instead of running after work, I took naps. It helped, sort of. I felt like my usual self when we left. But I knew I was still tired, knew I’d still been burning the candle at both end..

…and when we got to Athens, instead of relaxing like most people do on vacation, I just pushed harder. We went straight out into the city after checking in to our Airbnb, barely pausing to change out of the clothes we wore on the plane. We stayed up all day, walking and shopping and unpacking, with an evening photoshoot on the horizon. The next morning, we were up at 5 am for a sunrise shoot. And we were up between 5 and 6 am every day after that.

I regret none of it. But I knew, even at the time, that I was pushing myself beyond my limits. And had been for most of the summer. (Like most people who are slightly unhinged, I was so singularly focused on my goals that I was able to ignore/rationalise away every warning sign.) Inevitably, the fact that I’d taken no time for self-care caught up with me. After my birthday celebration, I inexplicably lost my appetite. If you know me, you know this is particularly strange – I live for snacks and, especially on vacation, am always counting down to my next meal. While I was able to enjoy our last days in Athens despite that, I suddenly became very sick on the last leg of our journey home. I spent the first two and a half days after we landed at home in bed.

…over a week later, I’m still not fully recovered. So I’ve been taking things very, very slowly since we got back. I have yet to exercise, even for a minute, whereas before we left I was working out for two hours or more every week day. While I haven’t been eating much, because my appetite is still dismal, I’ve focused on making sure everything I put in my mouth is something I really enjoy. Healthy or not healthy. I’ve watched movies. I’ve lit candles just because. And you know what? This whole self-care thing is pretty nice. Goals are great. But having the time to just go about my life in an unplanned (dare I say, normal?) way has been a welcome break.

That’s hardly a revelation for most people. But I have never been most people.

Today, I’m in Edmonton for work. Travelling for business is part of the more frantic pace of my regular life, so this is the first step to easing back into it. But hopefully I can do that while retaining some of the self-care habits I’ve gotten into, too.

Tell me, since I clearly need help – how do you do self-care?

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