Is “Self-Care” Just a Bunch of Hooey?

Please don’t take offense, but I really don’t find myself caught up in the concept of “Self-Care”. I have all sorts of feels about the term and the industry that has been spawned from such a proactive pattern that should (I believe) be a simple part of our lifestyle. Frankly, we just need to do right by ourselves, think about ourselves and our needs and live with those better life practices all the time. I know- how easy is it for me to say…the retired person with no major responsibilities!

Given that I have lived a longish amount of time, I thought it might be appropriate to share a few stories about my younger days- those day when no one used the term self-care, no one really thought about self-care, and when being youngish meant making foolish, reckless, and possibly really harmful decisions.

Baby Oil Broiling

I happened to be rather pasty looking as a child, blamed mostly on my Nordic heritage. One of my major goals as a teen prior to full-time summer work and car money, was spending the summer tanning. That always involved the reclining style webbed lawn chair- covered of course in a beach towel, the portable radio tuned to my local AM station which at the time happened to be KJR-Seattle-Channel 95, the donning of the most current bikini, and finally the well thought out, highly strategic positioning of said lawn chair to catch every last ray of late morning-full afternoon sun. Oh… also the economy size bottle of baby oil.

Who remembers the Coppertone ads of the 1970’s? The cute, young, pony-tailed girl with the playful pooch tugging on her dainty swimsuit bottoms. No mentions of sunscreens in those days. It was tanning oil all the way baby, and a less expensive version for the cost-conscious, I-so-need-a-car-of-my-own teen was baby oil. I suspect that if you look back to the heading you probably know where this is going. Hours in the full sun, slathered in baby oil, literally cooking my body back to front…and the sunburns…blistered, peeling sunburns. I marvel that I am relatively unscathed today. Perhaps we still had some ozone layer back then.

Why Are The Trees In The Middle Of The Road?

Advancing a few years but still none the wiser, how about an illicit drug encounter. We had planned a girlfriends trip to the beach on a lovely summer day complete with picnic food, beer bought for us by someone’s older sibling, and a full pan of pot laced brownies. I was the driver so I know there couldn’t have been more than 4 of us as my sub-compact Plymouth Arrow (yes I got the car) was just too tiny and we had to have enough room for all appropriate manner of beach gear as well. This one was simple: a full, fun day at the beach (2 1/2 hours away) and then an evening drive back home. I remember making the brownies as a group, the day before the trip. The pot was acquired from the same older sibling who purchased the beer…or maybe they were wine coolers as we were really into syrupy sweet wine coolers at the time. Anyway- none of us had a clue about the amount of pot you would generally put into a batch of brownies. We weren’t a part of the expert “stoner” group. We didn’t smoke pot. We just wanted to enhance the gooey chocolatey goodness a bit. I remember a pretty full baggie of pot (although how reliable my memory really is seems pretty questionable at this point) and I suspect most of it ended up in the batter. I have no idea how many brownies I consumed that day but I do have a lasting memory of leaving the beach driving my Plymouth Arrow with 3 other stoned friends and suddenly encountering (on a downhill curving road) an entire forest of pine trees walking themselves onto the roadway directly in front of me in a rather undulating haphazard dance. Given the fact that I am writing this post today means that I avoided the walking trees and survived the trip home even though I have no memory of driving at all. There was no more pot, ever, after that day.

Let’s Make the Ex-Boyfriend Jealous in the Worst Way Possible

After dating my first post high school boyfriend for about 2 years it became evident that breaking up was the thing to do- not by my choice at the time, but inevitably the best thing that could have happened as he was marching headlong into that illicit drug life that I had left behind after the brownie incident. I was however, still very much in my rebellious, I-will-show-my-alcoholic-mom-a-thing-or-two phase so parties with friends on the weekends absolutely involved drinking, usually within some level of reason until…

…our mutual circle of friends meant that the ex- Tim -and I ended up at a party together on some rural road on the outskirts of the county. I have to stress the rural part. There were no street lights, there were ditches and trees all along the abundant gravel roads and no close proximity to real EMS stations if the need arose. At that time Tim had a roommate he had befriended at work and of course there was irony in the fact that I had actually gone to school with the roommate- well known as a goof-up and a stoner. Perfect for Tim and his burgeoning lifestyle and perfect for me to make some unplanned, ridiculous attempt to spark jealousy from Tim. After drinking way too much and literally tossing myself at the roommate Paul, who was even more intoxicated than I was, I found myself willingly hopping on the back of a motorcycle behind Paul and roaring off full tilt down one of those super dark, gravel roads. I should add that this was summer, I was wearing cut-off shorts, a halter top and have no idea if I had shoes on. Surely Deb- a helmet? Surely not I admit because no one wore helmets back then. The ride is a blur but I do remember loving the feeling of going fast. I also remember making the final turn back down the road to the house where the party was, hearing a lot of flying gravel and feeling the back of the bike underneath me wobble and slide a lot as we seemed to really lean extremely far into the curve. Going back inside I was pretty sure Tim didn’t even realize I was gone, and certainly not with Paul. A short time later I overheard Paul talking and laughing with a group, recalling the ride and finding it extremely hilarious as he retold how he had come within inches of laying the bike down on that final turn after taking the corner way too fast. The only thing that would have stopped us as we tumbled and skidded down the pavement were the cars parked in the driveway. The only thing that would have stopped us had we flown into the air was the dense stand of trees lining the roadside. Believe me, I know exactly what you’re thinking and I agree completely. That night was not my last adventure on a bike but it was the first and only time my immaturity and stupidity was in charge.

I think that it has to be clear to everyone that each incident that I just shared (those are the most severe ones) was never done with the idea of my best interests in place. Of course I believed I had reasons, good reason, for doing what I did at the time. Thankfully I have 50ish years of separation from those decisions. I learned lessons from each one. I learned that I needed to take better care of myself. Self-care to me means incorporating all the hard lessons, all the really senseless things we do, and making a decision to be better, kinder and more centered on ourselves in general. It means valuing the body and the mind that we claim as our individual self.

At The Heart of The Matter this morning I’ve written some personal thoughts about self-care. Please pop over for my discussion and impressions on this topic and on why I question the role of social definitions and even trending attempts to take what I see as the simplicity out of simply loving and valuing you.