The GR8 Journey

The thing I said I'd get back to was me

Some of my plants were dying.

And my plants have always been an extension of me, so this one landed differently than a dead houseplant should.

Something clicked, and it wasn't gentle: I was letting myself slowly die inside. And I'd been so busy I hadn't seen it, even though the evidence was sitting right there in my house.

Let me back up.

I used to have a steady routine. Self-care, self-love, the small things I just loved to do. Nothing fancy. Mine. That routine didn't end one day with an announcement. It got replaced, a little at a time, by projects. By doing a favor for a friend. By sleep that happened to me instead of sleep I chose.

Yes is second nature to me. It comes out before I've checked with anybody, including me. And every yes that came out on reflex was also a no to something else. Usually something that was mine. Nobody tells you it's a trade. It's always a trade.

My wants. My needs. My well-being. All of it got compromised, and not because anybody demanded it. I did it to myself, one easy yes at a time. Nobody was standing over me. That's what makes it hard to see. There's no villain to point at, just a calendar that kept filling up with everybody but me.

For three years I said "later." I meant it every time. Later, after this project. Later, once I finish this favor. Later, when things calm down. I wasn't lying to anybody. I was just lying to the one person who never complained about it.

I want to be clear about what I'm not saying. I'm not saying the projects were bad. I'm not saying I resent my friends, or that helping people was a mistake. I was made to be a giver and I'd say yes to the right things all over again. But I was slowly losing myself and only showing up for everybody else. From the outside that can pass for being a great friend. From the inside it was diabolical.

So, the plants.

I didn't have a grand plan. I just went and took care of them. And as they're growing and thriving, I want that for myself too. I'm trying to do the same.

Not as a metaphor. I am literally trying to keep my plants alive and myself alive at the same time. The plants just show me my progress faster.

I haven't fixed it, and I'm not going to pretend a few healthy plants mean I've got it figured out. Some days the old reflex still gets there first, and I catch it halfway through a yes that I didn't want to say. But I catch it more than I used to. And every day I make the conscious effort to be great, which for now looks like small, unglamorous things: protecting a little time that's mine, doing a thing I used to love just because I used to love it.

If you read this and thought of something, a routine you dropped, a thing you were doing for yourself before you got busy being everything for everybody, I'm not going to ask you to fix it today. I'm just going to ask you to look at it.

What's been quietly telling you something while you were too busy to look?

You're allowed to have a plan of your own. You were the whole time.

You are dope. Now it's time to start acting like it.

And remember — it's not just the greatness for me, it's the greatness for you too!