Intellectually, I know otc medications, physical therapy exercises, heat pads, yoga, exercise, a good diet, and drinking enough water can be a solutions for many problems. Practically, it is 8:30 on a Monday night*, nearly 12 hours since I last took any ibuprofen, I’m pretty sure I haven’t had enough water today (unless you count coffee), and I haven’t done any of my PT exercises, or yoga in days.

Instead, I’m cranky, tired, over scheduled and typing a blog post while snapping gum, half halfheartedly wondering why I feel so awful, and mostly choosing to ignore it and simply press on, feeling increasingly irritable, and I just snapped at Kid1 because they ventured out of their room after lights-out time again to tell me about some kid in their class who got a new haircut. Go to bed.

Intellectually, I know there are solutions to my aches and pains, and I really should go drink a large glass of water, eat some crackers, and take some ibuprofen. Then I should brush my teeth, warm up my heating pad, and curl up with a book, but I’m probably not going to. It is easier to passively ignore the situation until I’m in too much pain to stand up straight, and then stumble down the hall, put on some pajamas and hope that I feel better in the morning.

Sometimes this works, sometimes this doesn’t.

When your option for 20-plus years was to “correct your thought,” and push through with a smile, it is easy to continue to do so. I never managed the “with a smile” part, but I also never manged to correct my thought enough to make it actually work either. So there is that.

I know I need to do my PT exercises so my back pain doesn’t leave me unable to stand straight. I know I should take ibuprofen to keep my monthly cramps in check. When I do my PT exercises regularly, I feel good. When I take ibuprofen as my doctor suggested to manage my menstrual cramps, they’re quite manageable. When I practice responsible self-care, set appropriate boundaries, and don’t over-schedule myself, I’m not a stressed out wreck.

And yet, here I am, at nearly 9 pm, writing a blog post about this instead of taking my own advice. I did delete the Facebook app from my phone though, and I reinstated the “do not disturb” settings so I’m going to count that as a win in the self-care and appropriate boundaries department (I also got a text at 6:05 am telling me it was raining… I love my friends, really).

Ignoring it is easy. Taking action is difficult. Writing a blog post about it is procrastinating.

I need to stop procrastinating.

I’m going to go tell some people “no.”

I’m going to set and hold some boundaries.

I’m going to go eat some crackers and take some ibuprofen, and maybe try a yoga pose or two before bed.

I’m going to keep trying.

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*when I wrote this, clearly it is not always 9pm on a Monday night, and I don’t usually publish things immediately