Our current task for Self Care Circle is to create a color-coded time map for our calendars. We’re using Google calendars and we’re supposed to add events and color code them to our liking. For instance, everything that is exercise related on my calendar is basil green, work is yellow, stuff like my yoga practice and building walks are red and education stuff is purple. I’ve been adding events to my calendar all week and at one point I paused and looked at ALL OF THE THINGS and I started hyperventilating. I took a screenshot and sent it to my friend Sarah. I told her that my calendar looks unrealistic and insane and I haven’t even added everything yet. She said “That’s why you’re doing it.” She then praised me on the amount of exercise I have on my calendar and told me that she thinks I do a pretty good job with the whole self care thing. She reminded me that I exercise, I write, I make art, I do that crazy Spelling Bee game in the NYTimes, I cook and I clean.

I do a lot of stuff.

Then she said “I think you should focus on positive self talk.” and I said “I think you need to shut up.”

No. I did not say that.

When I look at the weekly view of my calendar, here is what I see. I see a lot of red and yellow. So much so that it looks like my calendar is on fire. I was thinking about this during one of my building walks, the yellow and red waving around like heat waves in my head, and the first edit I am going to make is to change those colors. I do not need to look at my calendar and feel like my life is on fire. The next changes I plan to make is to add some events. One day this week, while standing out on the work patio at tea time, I watched a young man with a backpack, wearing headphones while roller skating down the sidewalk. Actually, to just call it roller skating is an injustice to what this young man was doing. It was a ballet on wheels. He roller danced his way down that sidewalk with ease and confidence and I knew right then and there what event needed to be added to my calendar. I am replacing my usual Wednesdays at Heather’s (she’s leaving today for her new job) with Roller Skating Wednesdays. I am also adding some rest events because if you were to look at my calendar now, you would say “Cindy! When are you ever still?!?!?” Events like ‘sit on the couch for an hour and squeeze my dog’ seems like a necessary item to add to the calendar.

Really, I need to remember that all the things in my calendar are intentions. There were only three days this week where I crawled out of bed early enough to do both thirty minutes of exercise and walk the dog. The intent was there; the body just wasn’t willing (probably because I never have an intention for resting). My personal yoga time happened twice this week. I am super busy at work right now and I just could not carve out extra time for my mat. Hey, but here are the things I did do. I walked the building multiple times a day. I did my job and I did it really well (science is hard). I spent time with friends in the evenings. That wasn’t on my calendar at all. I did some writing. I made some art. I checked in with some friends I hadn’t talked to in a while. I rode my scooter. I made Queen Bee four out of five days this week.

Why is it so easy to fall back into a mindset of only seeing the things one didn’t do? Today, I am grateful for all the things I did do.