“My Mom will get it done…” they say…

“My Mom’s a SUPERWOMAN” they say…

“My Mom can do ANYTHING” they say…

… until she can’t.

That’s literally what happened to me. I started out with a small cold, and ended up in the ER with the doctor fearing that I had meningitis… seriously EFFIN’ MENINGITIS.

I went from an annoying runny nose, to cold sweats, nausea, (tmi time) diarrhea, aching muscles, and then even further down the rabbit hole to a throbbing head ache and not being able to move my eyes, neck, or back without excruciating pain. This sent me straight to an Urgent Care because they’ll be able to figure this out and prescribe me something, right? Just for them to essentially say “Oh Sh*t! We need to transfer you to the Emergency Room NOW! just to be safe” 🙂

All-in-All, I was okay. I did not have meningitis. I didn’t even have the flu. I just had a fairly tough virus that was able to cause havoc because I was depleted, exhausted, and dehydrated. This made me self reflect on how much i hadn’t been taking care of myself.

Leading up to this, I was literally working around the clock, getting maybe – 5-6 hours of sleep a night. When I would wake up, I would hit the ground running. I have a pretty demanding job, so when I am on, I AM ON for 8+ hours 5-6 days a week. On top of that, I was striving to be super mom (cape and all). Making sure that I had my hands in everything that was going on, paying all of the bills, cleaning the house, folding the clothes, homework, bath times, cooking breakfast… and lunch… and dinner… and all of the other little tiddly-winks that we do as moms.

I literally was excited to be able to shower when my baby went to bed. A 5 minute shower was my treat for all of the work I had done that day. That’s pretty sad.

I’ve said this before, but we as women, as mothers, as caregivers, we have to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves. I didn’t start to rethink what I was giving all of my time and energy to until I was laying in an ER bed afraid that I was going to either die, or worse HAVE TO MISS ANOTHER WEEK OF WORK! (the f*ck… queue eye roll…) I was NOT taking care of myself mentally, physically, or emotionally. While giving your all to your children, your job, and/or your ambitions is never a bad thing, once I had done everything for them instead of doing something for me I still did something for someone else.

WRONG ANSWER!

So, from here on out, I’ve decided that I am going to put myself first no matter what. I will make sure that I am taking at least (probably more once I start to really get the hang of this, LOL) 30 minutes each day to do something that brings me joy and relaxation. Whether that is reading a book, painting my nails, or watching mindless TV. I understand now after my little scare that taking care of myself is more important than anything else.

Words from a very wise woman that may have been a flight attendant:

“Put your face mask on first, and then your children”