Doing nothing is harder than it should be.
From the Sunday Self-Care Chronicles | 3/15/26
Hi sweet friend,
It's 3:30pm on Saturday and I'm still in my pajamas.
My coffee has been reheated approximately four times… and shit, looks like it's headed for a 5th!
There is a mountain of laundry — at least three large clean loads — staring at me from the daybed next to me in our home office. There is more piled up than is actually left hanging in my closet. And I definitely don't want to tell you how long it's been there.
I have a list approximately seventeen miles long of things I need to do before two back-to-back trips in a few weeks (one of them nearly 3 months out of the country), and the truth is I'm not going to get to any of them today.
I slept in until 10:30am (why oh why can't I be a morning person?!), had a slow start to my day with a homemade omelette and my first (and actually hot) cup of coffee, and now have been banging away on my computer ever since. Sure, I cleared out some emails from my inbox and added a few more to-do's on my calendar, but it was a lot more thinking and planning than actually doing.
And honestly? It's taken me most of the day to stop feeling guilty about it and give myself permission to wrap up soon so I can go enjoy a Saturday night out with my hubby.
Here's what's funny about having cancer — and I use "funny" loosely, because we all know it's more complicated than that.
It makes you exquisitely aware of time.
Sometimes in a beautiful, mindful, be-present-in-every-moment kind of way. But more often, like a low hum in the background of everything you do that whispers: is this worth it? Is this how you want to spend your time? Are you sure?
And suddenly doing nothing feels like a moral failing.
I used to binge-watch America's Next Top Model without a second thought. Several episodes of Say Yes to the Dress made my Saturday back in the day.
I could get up from the couch or bed to pee or grab a snack, and then dive right back in. Completely, gloriously, unproductively. And I didn't feel bad about it. I felt rested. Physically and mentally.
Cancer (and probably also the ever growing demand of productivity culture in adulthood) took that easy permission — that blissful naïveté so many of us are endowed with in youth and before trauma finds us —away from me and I've been trying to earn it back ever since.
So today I'm practicing something harder than a workout and more uncomfortable than a hard conversation:
I'm doing what my body and brain are asking for, without justifying it. Not tying my worth to my to-do list. Moving slowly. Letting accomplishing almost nothing be enough.
This week I've been deliberate about nourishing myself — actually eating well and hydrating throughout the day instead of running on caffeine and good intentions — and I have felt measurably, noticeably better.
More human. Less tired. More focused. Less anxious. More like myself — the self I know and like best.
And today what my body wants is ease.Slowness. Pj's all day without pressure. Dinner with my husband tonight and a show on the couch after. The kind of Saturday that doesn't produce anything or prove anything.
That's not laziness.
That's listening.
The same self-care that works in your body — consistent, intentional, tuned in — works in your life too. And sometimes what it's telling you is: stop. just stop for a minute.
You don't have to earn rest or stillness. You don't have to justify pleasure or enjoyment.
And you are absolutely allowed to rewatch guilty pleasure television without cancer making it weird.
So, if you're somewhere in your pajamas with cold coffee and a pile of laundry giving you the side-eye, I see you. Hit reply and let's commiserate — are you leaning in or is the guilt winning?
Because, I'm always in this with you.
P.S. The omelette, by the way, was excellent. I highly recommend feeding yourself like you mean it.