Life Lessons from a Rom Com

Or: Self-care that isn't an advertisement

There was a time when my life had serious romantic comedy potential.

In my mid-twenties, my hair short thanks to a traveling Australian hair stylist working for tips in a Berlin hostel kitchen, I spent two months in a one room open-air cabin on St. John in the US Virgin Islands. No-Ad SPF 30 was my body lotion and a shiny blue bikini bought on sale was my uniform.

Even the way I met my now-husband is story material. 27 and living with my parents thanks to adventures hinted at above, I went to a party a mile from their house and met a Dutch guy who’d just arrived to do his PhD research. In the weeks and months following, we had a cute misunderstanding that led to a first kiss, a dramatic break-up attempt, and even an epic day-after-Christmas breakdown on the highway in rural North Carolina. Call Reese, I’ve got a movie idea.

These days, I’m an unwilling dance mom with what looks like an ideal life: two healthy kids, husband has a good job, we live in a gorgeous house close to the university, and have the cutest dog in town. The dog part is purely objective, by the way. Evidence has been gathered. Test have been done. Do not question my methods.

Cutest dog in town (certification pending)

I’m a woman of a peri-menopausal age who’s trying to launch a writing career, although usually it feels more like shoving word salad off the cliff and clocking the air time before I hear it hit the bottom of the canyon a la Wile E Coyote. I get along with my husband. Sure, I can turn a bicker-fest about cardboard recycling in front of the back door into a melodramatic comment on the foundations of our twenty-year relationship, but basically we get along.

Why was I reading romcoms this week? I’m a cynical romantic. As in, loved Jane Austen, enjoy Bridgerton (the music, the music!) and know it’s all a fantasy. Real life is choosing a partner you can tolerate living with for the foreseeable future, possibly with offspring, without turning either committable or homicidal. Note that this standard might be higher than the soul mate standard as you likely have a soul mate. On the other hand, finding someone synchronously on earth who you can live with for twenty or forty years without once thinking about 50 ways to kill them, because leaving would be too good for them, that’s a bit harder.

But I digress.

I was reading romcoms because I’ve been in an ugly and unrelenting reading slump. Very few books seem interesting. I’ve struggled through novellas. Changing medium to e-books didn’t help. Audio books were alright if I managed to not zone out. Since March, I’ve mainly started books and put them aside unfinished.

In case you’re worried, my book buying remains consistent, so it’s not like I completely lost my mind.

Last week I started I Hope this Finds You Well by Natalie Sue and read it in two days. It was fun. Sensing a slump turning point, I started Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane.

Then I had a disagreement with my husband, spouse, life partner that left me in tears. I called a friend who reminded me that I’m responsible for my own happiness. Like a teenager trapped in an adult body, I said something like “I don’t want to be.”

I’m one of a kind. Totally unique.

My friend is right and she’s loving. If I’m having a season in my life right now, it’s the “learn to take care of yourself” season, which is coinciding with a weirdly consumer oriented self-care season on our social medias. Perhaps a topic for another time.

My dilemma is trying to figure out what taking care of myself means because it isn’t Korean face masks and gel mani-pedis plus shi shi candles. Here’s where MacFarlane delivered unexpected advice.

Don’t You Forget About Me is the story of a woman in her 30s who’s single, confident that she’s disappointing her entire family, and prone to public humiliation she swears isn’t her fault. At one point, she recalls a friend’s advice to celebrate herself after rejection and the friend’s “spoil myself “ day plan.

It had never occurred to me that I need to think of what being taken care of means in terms of action. As in, taking care of me is something that has to be done, not something to wait for. If I don’t know what to do, I’m chasing an emotional shadow, a feeling that I may not recognize when it arrives. It’s like hunting a moose and thinking it looks like a reindeer; senseless.

And then the kicker, the real motivation to get off my patootie and do something was this line….

“Sometimes because the people we wanted to care for us, don’t care for us, we live with a deliberate lack of care for ourselves. A way of getting back at them, through self-neglect.”

- Mahiri MacFarlane, Don’t You Forget About Me

Not taking care of myself only hurts me.

Not taking care of myself isn’t a statement, it won’t get anyone’s attention, it definitely isn’t going to make me feel better.

I hated reading this and thinking these thoughts and realizing that the work is all mine no matter what. I’m in charge of taking care of me. Period. I need to make my own happy.

So, now I’m on a quest, I guess. It’s time to go out in the world and discover what makes me happy. Will it be reading romcoms? Walks in the woods? Crafts? Puzzles? I’m not sure and to be honest, I’m scared of messing it up.

How can I worry about messing up my happiness? Perhaps I live with a lot more fear of failure than I thought I did. But I know how to get around that: I’m going to pretend to be the kind of person who takes care of herself. If pretending to be a writer could turn me into a writer, maybe pretending to be mentally healthy will make me mentally healthy? It’s worth a shot.

Any tips?

edited on 13 August because first draft included swaths of word salad that required attention.