I’ve gone and done it.

Again.

Took a perfectly nice thing I did for myself, and confused it.

Take a look at my lunch.

It’s the photo on the right, there.

You may not be able to tell, but I sort of screwed up.

I forgot something important.

What did I forget?

The thing I forgot

Sunday night, I rallied under the message of self care.  I “mom’ed” myself real good.

I gave myself a bed time and stuck to it.

Packed a healthy lunch.

Picked out things to wear.

Reviewed my plans for the next day, briefly, before bed.

I was feeling pretty good about my efforts on Monday.  I was rested, well groomed, and ready for anything.

Until lunch time rolled around and I realized I had no fork.

No fork, people.

No fork.

I had packed this gorgeous salad and had nothing to eat it with.

Mom wisdom

Now I realize that some of you reading may be rolling your eyes.

“She’s writing about salad, now?  Really?”

Maybe some of you are thinking that.

Or perhaps that’s just my inner critic weighing in.  I’ll be writing more about inner critics in a week or two, incidentally.  So stay tuned for that.

Anyways.  Perhaps a couple of you want to slap a #firstworldproblem tag onto this post and be done with it.  And that’s fine.

If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a few weeks, you know my bias.

I talk about the everyday self-care rituals and practices (or absence of those) that make or break us.

You know I’ve waxed poetic about the importance of lunch before.

And breakfast.

And sleep.

I call it mom wisdom.

It’s the beautiful stuff and structure that, hopefully, our moms and dads helped supply early on and pushed us to do ourselves as we got older.

It’s a bunch of lessons on how to be a grown up.

How to manage your money, your heart, and your sleep.

How to look after yourself and be responsible.

That kind of stuff.

Stranded from my salad

I’m not going to translate my salad into some sort of epic metaphor.

Fact is, I don’t have a big break-through message for you today.

I tried to take good care of myself.

Some of it translated well.

And some of it involved me picturing myself eating salad with my fingers.

Side note:  I’m happy to report I didn’t get that desperate.  Fortunately I’d packed a few other things in my lunch that tided me over through my busy day.

All in all, the best I can manage today is a few thoughts about my salad situation:

1.) We may miss the mark.  But hopefully that doesn’t keep us from trying.

2.) There are dozens of opportunities throughout our days to nurture or neglect ourselves.

3.) Don’t forget your fork.  If you do forget, use humor.

I hope there’s something in there for you this week.

And however you choose to look after yourself tomorrow, remember:  don’t forget your fork!