In the last year I’ve had several wake-up calls make me realize I’ve forgotten about myself.
1) I got a bad haircut, which led to a breakdown, 2) I gained 30 lbs, 3) I started a fire, and 4) a good friend of mine passed away.
First, I had a breakdown when my haircut and color didn’t come out right. In July I scheduled a 3-hour appointment to get my hair cut and colored. It was a big deal because I never take that much time for myself, since I try to spend every free moment with my 3-year old.
I feel guilty for working all week and try to make up for it on the weekend. So, this was a big investment of not only money, but also time. When the haircut and color didn’t come out how I wanted, I low-key had a breakdown. The whole week after I was depressed because I couldn’t get that time back, and this had been my one chance to do something for myself.
Then I realized that this had nothing to do with hair. It was deeper. I didn’t cut myself any slack or build in any room for error. It had to go right.
But the truth is, every time you move, it takes a while to find a stylist. Not everyone knows how to cut thick hair. I never took hair and beauty that seriously. I was self-absorbed. Thought it wasn’t important. It’s just hair. How hard could it be to get it right? Really. I should have known better. Should have remembered how much work it had been to find a good fit in every other city I had lived. Maybe because I was so overwhelmed, I just couldn’t spare the energy.
Hairdressers specialize in certain styles, hair textures, ethnic groups, etc., which, somewhat arrogantly, I found extremely annoying, inefficient, and inconvenient. But that’s how it works. It’s an art, and I hadn’t given it the respect it deserved. It takes time to find the right salon, stylist, color, cut. It requires trial and error. Time and money. References. Local friends, ideally with hair similar to yours. Small talk. Research.
You might not get it right the first time. And so, I tried again. My mom saw how upset I was and offered to fund my next cut. I did some research, asked my mom to watch my kid, and tried again. It worked. I found an awesome salon and amazing stylist who had hair similar to mine, was Mexican, and understood what I was looking for. I wasn’t willing to shell out again for highlights, or go to the original place, since I had no trust in them, so I tried a do-it-yourself kit, and it worked. I looked good now and it lifted my mood.
Spending all that time and money on myself. Twice. I got it right, finally. It did matter. It wasn’t frivolous. It did change my mood to look good and make an effort.
So now I looked good. I thought I had learned my lesson. Make time for yourself. Care about yourself. Build room for error.
But one day, while working from home, on the phone with my internet provider, and trying to heat up some lunch, I started a fire and burned the microwave.
The internet wasn’t working. Or Zoom wasn’t working. Or it updated. I’ll never know. But there was something not working, and I got on the phone with Spectrum. I was also hungry. It was lunch time and I hadn’t had breakfast. I had bought myself one of those healthy frozen meals. I put it in the microwave, but it never heats up, and I always have to put it longer, so instead of 3 minutes, I added a zero, making it 30, and told myself I’d come back in 5. Yeah. This while also wearing earbuds and going into the next room to tinker with my modem. Sometime later I remembered and went to turn it off.
Too late. There was smoke everywhere. The fire alarm had gone off. I opened the microwave and there was a fire….
Nothing bad happened, but it was embarrassing. The maintenance man told me it’s been happening more and more with people working from home, multitasking. After a couple days, the smell of smoke, went away. But it was pretty scary to be honest. How little attention I was paying to feeding myself and making time for something as basic as lunch. Putting it at the bottom of my to do list.
Another kicker was realizing how much weight I put on, again. With my 20-year high school reunion on the horizon, I realized I had gained 30 lbs. in the last year. It is what it is. Not my proudest moment, but more a signal of not prioritizing myself. Not being creative on how to be active, make meals a real thing, and deal with 3 different diets at home: toddler, vegan, and stress-eating.
But really the biggest wake-up call of all was learning that a good friend of mine, the only other Latina to finish our doctoral program, and the only one to become a professor, died at the age of 38, from breast cancer. A first-gen immigrant, first-gen college student, straight from Jalisco, mom, raising a young boy, in the Central Valley. Así pasa. Se acaba la vida.
I was so angry when I learned that Romina died. To be honest, I still am.
She went through so much. She persevered. She hustled. She taught. She moved. Whatever it took. And I’m glad she’s no longer in pain. I’m glad she’s resting. But I miss her. She never met my kid. I just met her kid at her funeral. And maybe we hadn’t been in touch, with me leaving academia, and all, us having less in common now. But damn. I wanted more for her. When she passed people mentioned what an impact she had on her students, and the academy. For sure. But what about her life? Her family? Her health? What the hell? At what cost?
After that something just snapped. Yeah I got scared, but more I was mad. What was the point? Of being good? Of working hard? Of having nothing to fall back on? Of having to be strong because there is no backup? Of not cutting one’s self any slack? Of building no room for error. At what cost?
For the last 6 years I was focused on survival. On making the transition from academia into the real world, finding something that stuck and learning the skills to succeed in this new life. Most notably, people skills, soft skills, assertiveness, teamwork, speaking up, managing up, communicating my needs, prioritizing myself, and taking myself seriously.
I’m getting there, but sometimes not soon enough.
What do these things have in common? Well, the fact that in some ways I let myself go last. Digging a little more into it, maybe that’s the way I’ve done things in the past, but it’s not sustainable going forward.