Somehow, we’re in the last week of January.  To me it both seems like the past month (or several) have flown by…and also like Christmas was 3 or more months ago.  It’s funny how time works like that.

Regardless as to how it feels though, next week is February and that means, love it or hate it, we’re approaching Valentine’s Day.

To be honest, I’ve only ever had a couple boyfriends who made a big deal about Valentine’s Day…and I was honestly never that bothered about it one way or the other.  When I worked in hospitality I always worked that night anyway so I got used to going out the night before or the night after – it was never as busy, much less expensive and not quite so charged with unrealistic expectations.  When Valentine’s was a big deal for me though, was when I was little and after we went to bed on the 13th my mom would put up decorations and we’d wake up to big hearts all over the walls and a three tier heart shaped cake…of which we were allowed a piece for breakfast (to this day, I do not know when she managed to bake, cool and frost a cake, my mom was straight magic).  So for me, Valentine’s wasn’t really about romantic love as much as it was about just LOVE in general.

With that in mind, as I’ve gotten older February has become a time of some self-reflection for me…looking at where I show and share my love, and the first place I have to look is inside.

I’m sure you’ve heard the quote “you cannot pour from an empty cup” – meaning if you have nothing left to give, you can’t give anything.  We all know it.  We all talk about it.  We’re all SAYING we understand self-care and self-love but the majority of us aren’t actually filling our cups first and that’s partly because often our ideas about self-care have become very narrow and superficial – sure a bath and a face mask is great and sometimes just what we need to relax, but self-care is not all manicures and “treat yo’self” – it’s also taking care of yourself even when that means making less-fun choices (getting enough sleep), it’s setting boundaries (saying no to things when we don’t have the bandwidth even if it means FOMO), it’s doing things that we don’t want to (meal-prepping, tidying up after ourselves, working out when we’re tired).

In other words, self-care is not all fun and games.

My husband is Catholic and so when we were getting married we did the required marriage prep course. I, for the record, am not Catholic and while I am very spiritual I have grown to struggle with organized religion so I was, shall we say, skeptical. It was however, pretty well done and worthwhile and mostly focused on establishing that we are on the same page when it comes to our values, how we spend money, child raising, caring for our extended families and our level of involvement with the wider communities we are a part of…probably everyone should do something like this if they’re going to spend their lives with another person.  The absolute most important thing that I took out of it though, that I can remember them saying plain as day and have come back to, time and time again, is that the marriage comes first.  When making decisions in life you first consider the marriage – how it will impact your partner, your union, if it’s in line with the values you both adhere to and that it is the right thing for you as a unit – then you move outward.  The idea is that the stronger your marriage is, the better equipped you will be to serve the wider circle.  Their opinion is, if your marriage is struggling, that is going to negatively impact all those other relationships.  Strong marriages = strong families = strong community.

And I totally agree…but I think you gotta walk it back a step further.  Before you think about anyone else, you have to get your own house in order.  

When we were younger and had been dating a few years my husband and I split up and stayed split up (for the most part) for about five years.  Not because we didn’t love each other.  Not because of not wanting to be together.  Not because we wanted to be with anyone else.  We split up because we had issues within ourselves that we had to deal with or we would never be able to make being together work.  Until we addressed what was missing inside of each of us, there was no way we could be together.  You cannot fill what’s missing inside of yourself with another person, it just doesn’t work.  Other people need to ADD to what you already have – they can’t be the thing that fills you.

There are a million analogies here:

You need to feed your body to maintain activity – if you’re empty you aren’t going to get nearly as far.

Cars need fuel – it doesn’t matter how fancy the car is, if you don’t feed it some sort of juice, it’s just a very heavy driveway decoration.

Power tools need power – if you let the batteries die or can’t plug them in, they are pretty much useless – the best drill in the world is just a hammer if you’re not charging it.

The more money you have, the more interest you earn.

And of course, the cup – you can’t pour from it, if it’s empty.

For the month of February that’s going to be our focus here – self-care.  Not “treat yo’self” and YOLO type self care – the choosing better fuel, setting boundaries, getting into routine, developing healthy habits – the harder, more daunting, and most easily overlooked self-care.

And we’re starting here – with a quote from W. Somerset Maugham:

“If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?” 

If you are a master of self-care already I applaud you!!  But if you, like so many of us, tend to neglect yourself or if your self-care is purely massages and facials, not going to bed on time, sweating a little every day and eating your fruits and veggies – spend the month of love focusing on the person who needs your love the most – YOU.