It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.
It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.
A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.
True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.
And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.
It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.
It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.
If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.
It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.
It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.
It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.”
-Brianna Wiest, in Thought Catalog
Oh my goodness, does this resonate. I love this so much.
-seriously from california to new mexico is terrifying like it’s eight straight hours of pale red desert and the sky is so large that everything, even your car, even your hands, looks like a tenuously small and fragile diorama placed on an endless pale red table and left there to dissolve.
-a gas station that for some reason has large dinosaurs made out of scrap metal. they are 1000% awesome. sometimes they move. take a million pictures.
-a fruit stand that sells the best fruit you have ever eaten. later you won’t quite remember which fruit. strawberries, maybe? peaches?
-small black birds, subtly different in every state. some have gold eyes and some are a little iridescent and some are black from beak to toes. the sparrows they compete with for crumbs look exactly the same wherever you go.
-a completely empty rest stop. no one eats at the concrete tables. no one plays in the tiny strip of grass or gravel. you will find a small and beautiful stone.
-a hawaii license plate, somewhere around ohio. i still don’t know how they get the cars across the ocean. i don’t know why anyone would leave hawaii for ohio. i don’t know why anyone lives in ohio.
-an incredibly weird duck. you had no idea ducks could look so incredibly weird, and you wish you were still ignorant of how incredibly weird ducks can, apparently, look.
-a small folksy roadside waystation that sells fudge and incredibly tacky statues of eagles and wolves and cowboys. if you like fudge, eat the fudge from here.
-a lizard doing pushups. if you are particularly fortunate: many lizards doing pushups.
-approximately one gajillion starbucks shops. don’t bother counting them. it will make you angry.
-a storm somewhere around oklahoma, if you’re lucky. the clouds tower up in fantastic fluffy castles miles and miles into the air and are painted pink and gold and purple and the sky turns a dozen impossible shades of blue and when the rain comes down over your car it sounds like the world is ending.
-weird burrs will stick to your legs. you’ll flick them out of the car eighty or eight hundred miles from where their parent plant was grown, and not be sure whether you should wish the little hitchikers well or not.
-a dog wearing sunglasses with his head hanging out of a car window. this will be the high point of the trip.
-the world’s most depressing restaurant. you will know it when you wind up there and have to eat the terrible food, and listen to the terrible music, and look at all the listless waiters and want to tell them get in my car, for god’s sake get in, i’ll take you out of whatever crapsack little town this is that you can’t get out of on your own. but you won’t say that because it’s rude. maybe they have family here. maybe they even like it here.
-a painting of a sailboat in a motel located at least a hundred miles from any significant body of water.
-several genuinely hilarious postcards. buy them.
-a cat that will not let you pet it. this will be the low point of the trip.
-corn. so much corn you will get scared. who the fuck is going to eat all this corn?
-a small stream in some small woods and the light will come down perfectly and the water will be beautiful and the grass will be beautiful and there will be flowers maybe or the leaves of the trees are starting to turn gold and there are birds chirping and it will be so perfect you will want to stand there and stay forever and live in this little magical painting off the side of the highway and be some kind of highway druid. but instead, you’ll get bored after a while, and get back in the car.
if anyone ever wonders why i love america so much despite its many political and cultural flaws, this is why. this post explains it perfectly.
Yes but this barely even covers the east cost bc you will experience great things such as -a highway that is so desolate, all you can see are trees. You will have to pee, but the next exit won’t be for another 20 miles so have fun -bridge after bridge after bridge. Who even builds a road over all these rivers and streams and stuff? -so many deer. They just want to cross the road, but instead they will just stare at you and will be content to do for another half an hour -restaurant after restaurant painted with little lobsters wearing chefs hats, apparently cooking other lobsters -more trees. Trees everywhere. -what state are we in? It doesn’t matter, you’re in New England, you will be in a new one soon -you will learn to hate the beach because for some reason, people really like the ocean and have to get there, so you will be stuck in traffic for hours and hours just because it’s a nice beach day. It doesn’t matter how far you are from the coast. If you are in a state that touches the ocean, you will experience the beach traffic -A road that probably hasn’t been paved since it was made, so you make a humming noise just to hear your voice shake with the bumps – so many trees. All you can see are trees. Trees everywhere.
– Highways cut into rocks. Rocks that bleed ice. It’s pretty spectacular. – Creepy abandoned buildings, regardless of where you’re driving. – The “wtf is that truck hauling” game. Might be industrial equipment. Might be a dead Transformer. – Oh shit, do we have a working map/gps/phone that has battery and service? Where are we? – There is no better way to see the country than to get in a car and drive until you run out of road or gas. Just do it, I’ve still got to finish my cross-country road trip.
You’ll also see (Deep South Edition): – “no parking on neutral grounds” signs and one way streets that lead to nowhere – incomprehensible town and street names, Tchopitoulas, Ocoee, amongst many others – vivid red dirt and stringy Spanish moss (but not in the same place) – oak trees lining the streets like giant circus tents – some of the friendliest people with the most interesting, heartwrenching stories, who invite you to sit yourself down and share a meal – highways suspended over marshland so lush that you dream of setting foot on the grasses, just to see if they’ll hold you up, and the blues skies framed by spindly bald cypress trees
– As you pass through the cities you will suddenly drive from a very obviously comfortable neighborhood into a very obviously poor neighborhood. There will be a very obvious divide, even though there are no actual signs whatsoever.
– So many squirrels. Why do we have this many squirrels in this country? They’re everywhere.
– If you’re really lucky, while you’re at a rest stop or something, you’ll see a bumblebee run head-first into your car window, shake its little head, and buzz off. Not quite the highlight of the trip, but hilarious nonetheless.
– Tumbleweeds, which unless you grew up in Nevada or Utah, you thought were something Saturday morning cartoons made up.
– A very obvious, if invisible, divide between the “soda” and “pop” divisions of the US. You’ll simply cross into a city and suddenly they’ll be saying “pop” instead of “soda.”
– At least one person wearing what may or may not be wizard regalia. If they’re also carrying an instrument, they’re from Portland, Oregon. Ignore them.
– At some point you will absolutely be stuck behind a vehicle that has the entirety of the back window covered in political bumper stickers, obscuring their rear view. They are usually, but not always, anti-Obama/anti-Hillary/anti-abortion stickers.
– So many themed restaurants. So. Many. They are all overpriced.
– You will spend what feels like an eternity crossing the state of Iowa. Compared to some of our bigger states – Alaska, California, Utah, Nevada, Texas – Iowa seems so small, right? No, you will spend what feels like your entire life trying to cross Iowa and all you will ever see is corn fields.
– At least one town that appears to have come straight out of Deliverance. It’s probably not as bad as you think it is, although it’s very likely everyone is racist and very poor. Racist or not, maybe spend some money there.
– Bugs you didn’t know could exist and they will scare you and make you question everything you know and love. They are straight out of your nightmares, no matter what they are. They will either be tiny and numerous, or humongous and singular.
– Every town with a population over 10,000 will have at least one non-Starbucks coffee shop. It is 100% guaranteed to be filled with what people consider hipsters. Don’t be a dick, just get your coffee and leave.
– A very visible Hardees/Carl’s Jr. divide line. They’re the same restaurant. You will be in one town going west and see a Hardees. Ten minutes later you’ll be in another town and it’s a Carl’s Jr.
– So many fucking cows, like I don’t even know why.
– At least one alpaca or llama, and probably a camel if you’re west of the Mississippi.
– The interesting and various ways people have found to get around the “no smoking in public places” rules.
– East coast “dry state” edition: Lines running out of the state liquor stores on Saturday, because people are stocking up for Sunday.
– West Coast edition: Bewildered east-coasters wandering the liquor aisle at Wal-Mart and making stunned noises that you can buy your booze all day, every day, at WALMART.
– At least two or three five-car pileups, causing 5-hour delays.
– So much corn. SO MUCH CORN. You will learn to hate the sight of cornfields, and possibly fear them a little bit. What the fuck are those big-ass leaves hiding???
– If you drive through the southwestern US at all, you will come across at least one honest-to-God 10-foot-tall cactus. It’s probably not mocking you, but you’ll get the feeling it is.
– If you go through the Pennsylvania area, you will see the word “Schuylkill.” It will confuse you. It’s pronounced “scoo-kul.” Just a handy hint so you can blend in with the locals.
– In any and every tiny town, they will have some sort of “claim to fame” that they are really proud of. In Doyle, CA, it’s their “world-famous lizard races.” In Virginia City, NV, it’s their outhouse races (I am not kidding). Keep a list. It’ll brighten your day when your road trip is over. If there are signs advertising this claim to fame, take a picture. Maybe scrapbook that shit, IDK. It’s fun to think about.
– If you’re driving west-east, you will suddenly cross some unseen border where every road is a toll road. Bring lots of change.
– Inexplicably gambling-themed items in non-Nevada and non-casino areas.
– Gigantic lottery billboards in every state that has a lottery, about once every five minutes.
– Convenience stores that all sell enormous half-gallon insulated soda mugs for $9.99. They come with a free fill-up with purchase. Protip: most convenience stores will let you fill mugs up from other stores, and the things are strangely good at insulating, so you may as well invest in one. Soda for everyone! Or just you. *stares at you*
– A lot of billboards, especially in the midwest and the south, proclaiming stuff about God. Like. A lot.
– Very strange tourist attractions. The world’s largest ball of string isn’t even close to the top of the list of the strangeness you can encounter if you keep your eyes open or google weird shit in the area you’re at. There’s an app called “FIELD TRIP,” I think, that will tell you about the weird shit and history around you if you keep location on on your smartphone. It’s free and totally worth the space on your phone.
– Some of the most beautiful landscape known to man, and some of the most desolate poverty one can reach in the so-called “first world.”
– At least a few “micro countries.” Go to one. They’re hilarious.
– Some towns so small you will call bullshit on the population estimate on their welcome sign.
– Some cities so large you will feel like you’re on a merry-go-round because there’s so much shit going on.
– At least once you will see a person, unattached to any food establishment, wearing a food costume for no apparent reason. Just…don’t question it, okay?
– A surprising amount of LARPers.
– Some of the oddest tourist merchandise known to man.
– At least one sequence of billboards for an attraction/truck stop/motel that spans more than fifty miles. (The sequence spans that distance, not the attraction.) Mine was in Wyoming.
– The biggest truck stop in the world. There will be a gift shop. There will be multiple gift shops. At least one of them will offer swords for sale. Probably laundry facilities, too. There will be a trucking museum.
– At least one local festival you didn’t realize was happening when you set out for the area. In the western states it will have a name like the Frolic, or Pioneer Days. There may be a saint’s name attached to it, in which case there will be ethnic food. Go for it.
-Wind turbines. So many wind turbines. None of them close to the highway but you’ll be seeing them in the distance for a good bit.
– If it’s not corn it’s soybeans and it goes on forever and ever.
– The longest stretch of straight interstate highway in the country passes through Nebraska. You will be subject to optical illusions that make it hard to tell how far you are from the car in front of you. Try not to let it get to you.
– There will be a spot where you pull over to get lunch and sit in the park. It will be the only green area in the immediate vicinity, because it’s near enough to the river to keep things cool. There will be ducks and they will come up to you to look for food. It turns out they eat cottage cheese. Seriously.
– Winnebagos. Or Airstream trailers, or whatever- there will be an awful lot of vehicles that allow people to drive their bedrooms around, is what I’m saying.
– Those wind turbines, by the way? Bigger than they look. The trucks that carry them to their destinations are the longest flatbeds available, and they travel in convoys with smaller trucks in front and behind each flatbed, flashing lights and all. It takes at least four flatbeds to carry the things, one for each blade and one for the central shaft. It looks like Godzilla’s funeral procession.
– In the middle of damn near nowhere, Wyoming, you’ll pull over for gas. There’ll be something strange about the gas station. Either it smells different from the others, or it looks different, or both; you’ll realize it when you step inside and see that there’s no alcohol or tobacco available, and smell the Indian spices, because you’ve just found a gas station run by Sikhs, and they’ve got a small temple and meditation center on the premises. They’ll have samosas.
– Somewhere in big sky country there’ll be a weather system moving towards you from a long way off, and it’ll be spread across so much of the open space in front of you that no one in the world could blame you for gripping the wheel extra tight and muttering, ‘Witness me!’.
The only addition I have to this is that you should absolutely never drive across Arkansas if you can avoid it, but PLEASE drive across Tennessee. It will be the best and most confusing 10 hours of your life. (Yes, 10 hours.)
Tenessee is basically like one giant tourist trap. It’s amazing.
I love this post because everytime it comes back there’s something new.
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