I Can't Keep Losing My Stuff:

Revisiting Self-Care

In mid-February, I noticed that my March calendar was becoming very full very quickly. As a pastor, professor, DMin Director, grant manager, mother, and spouse, I have several things to do at all times. While I do not necessarily recommend people have many jobs, the reality of life is that there are many people who must in order to make ends meet. I genuinely love the work I do in these different positions, which allow me to live into my call and work with some amazing people. It also means I have to travel a lot, which I generally enjoy. Still, there are times when it gets rough, and March was one of those times.

As the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program, I am responsible for overseeing the program and ensuring that students successfully matriculate. This year, my first cohort has sixteen Christian and Muslim students graduating in May, which is incredible. It also means that I had sixteen theses to review and sixteen oral exams to administer in March. Additionally, I also served on the committee for a PhD student and a Master’s student, which together required me to read over 2,000 pages. Then, to make this really fun, I had to travel to three states in ten days.

The week before my first trip, I was putting my Sankofa necklace on while rushing to walk out the door to take my daughter to school. Later that evening, while packing for my trip home to St. Louis, I realized my necklace was gone. My heart sank. I continued to prepare to go home to check on family and a friend who had been ill. The trip home was eventful, with our plane being rerouted to Kansas City, the temperature being in the thirties, and the fire alarms going off in the hotel at 8 am. Nevertheless, I saw the people I needed to see while working from my hotel room.

Upon returning to Dallas, I started removing my jewelry to prepare for my shower and realized one of my silver infinity earrings was missing. I felt disappointed because I just got them at Christmas during a trip. The next morning, I finished a couple more oral exams and then hurried to pick up my new eyeglasses since I had lost my old ones and had been relying on a very old pair. After that, I headed to Charleston to attend the Society for the Study of Black Religion’s annual conference, where I was asked at the last minute to join a panel. When the plane landed in Charleston, I went to the bathroom, and as I looked down, I noticed my necklace was hanging from my neck, but the cartouche I had bought in Cairo was gone. I was heartbroken.

The morning after I landed back in Dallas from Charleston, I boarded a plane to Indianapolis to attend a mandatory gathering for grant recipients. After checking into my room, I settled in and prepared to read more theses. I went to my purse for my glasses, only to discover there were none. I searched through my carry-on bag looking for the brown glasses case and came up empty. I remember putting the glasses on in the airport lounge to read something, and I thought I put them in my purse. Apparently, I didn’t. I had my glasses for less than five days, and now they were gone. In that moment, I started thinking about all the things I’d lost over the past month. I couldn’t find two of my autism bracelets, my earrings, my Sankofa necklace, my cartouche, and now my brand-new glasses! Being the constant processor I am, I asked myself why I am losing everything, but I did not have an answer.

Later, I was talking to a Sistar, and we were giving updates on our lives over margaritas. I talked about my life, which I called my March Madness, without any basketball. All the craziness at work, plus having my daughter’s Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) Meeting for her Individualized Education Plan, and being forced to call in some of the providers who were not providing the services she needed. I play about a lot of things, but not my child. You will not sit in my play face and think it will be okay. My Sistar shared her struggles as well and then went on to encourage me for my work and the way I show up for my daughter, students, the church, and more. I appreciated hearing that she sees me because we all want to be seen at some point. As I listened to her, I was thinking and then suddenly said out loud, “And that’s why I keep losing all of my stuff!” I had been showing up everywhere for everyone, nonstop, so focused on doing everything well that I lost focus on myself and my stuff.

Anyone who knows me has probably heard me talk or preach about the importance of self-care, particularly for Black women. After losing my mother to breast cancer, I vowed not to let myself be worked to death. Let’s be clear, I practice self-care because I want to model it for the ministry partners at my church, my students, and anyone else I can help along the way. I developed a Rule of Life, as taught by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes in Sacred Self Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Wholeselves, to help me structure my life to prioritize myself. It includes weekly sabbaths on Fridays, daily yoga and devotional time, drinking water, having fresh flowers, and more. And yet, even while I was doing a lot of these things, I was still losing my stuff.

When I realized how crazy my schedule would be in March, I started telling myself I just needed to get through the month, I could make it. I even took a trip to Hawaii at the end of February with my best friend to celebrate her birthday and to give myself a break before the chaos. I knew I wouldn’t get my weekly sabbaths with the travel and exams. I understood that I would have to give up some things to get everything done. What I did not count on was how much of myself and my stuff would be lost along the way.

Every day, as we navigate our lives, we negotiate what we will give and receive. Too often, we do not negotiate for ourselves enough, which causes loss. In my case, I lost physical things in the process of also losing parts of me that were not given time to replenish. I see in real time just how costly losing can be. I lost a lot of money while losing my items. I also lost some of myself as I brought myself to the point of exhaustion. How could this be the case? I practice self-care. I have a Rule of Life! I had to sit with this.

The morning I was scheduled to leave Indianapolis and return home to Dallas, I was putting on my shirt, and as my arm went through the sleeve, one of the Autism Awareness bracelets I’d lost fell out. The shirt had been washed, hung up, and packed for the trip, and it was not until I was going home on Wednesday that I found something I had lost. Saturday, we were in the church preparing for our worship service, and as I was placing my bag on the counter, I saw a glass case that looked familiar. I picked up the case, opened it, and found my glasses I’d lost months ago. I then became cognizant of the fact that it wasn’t until I was returning home and then in the church that I began to find things that were lost.

In the hurriedness of life, in this capitalistic society, we can keep going and “grind,” often taking us away from home in the process. I do not subscribe to grind language, although I find myself participating in grind culture. Even though the work is “good” work, it can keep us away from home. What this experience has taught me is that home is not just the house where I live. Home is where we are in community with people who love us and show up for us in particular ways. I was on my way to be with my family, and I was at The Gatherings, A Womanist Church, when I began to find what I had lost. A major part of our self-care is being in community with people who can hold our truths and still love us, who love us fiercely. When we make time to be fully present in these spaces consistently, we recover what we need. We recharge ourselves with what we need to not only go on, but to go on with clarity. Initially, I thought I lost my focus, but in reality, it was not lost; it just wasn’t clear. I was hyper-focused on the work and blurred myself out of the picture.

Continuing to sit with the question of why I was losing my stuff, I began to review my practices and strategies to see what I was and wasn’t doing. I was also examining what I was doing to see if there was a way of avoiding some of this. Again, I have no problem telling people “no.” I often preach and teach that “no” is a complete sentence. Yet, my calendar told a different story. There were a lot of things on the calendar I could not avoid because they were part of my job, some scheduled a year in advance, and, of course, some I could have said no to. I am continually trying to find the balance between “yes” and “no” to requests. While I have declined some things, I don’t think I have declined enough. The problem is that I usually say yes too early, and then it becomes due at a not-so-good time. I am returning to the wisdom of my friend, Dr. Chelsea Yarborough, “Be kind to your future self. Will my future self hate me for this?” I will have to be more diligent and intentional about the yeses I give my future self to carry.

My last observation from this experience is that amid all the urgencies and chaos, I must slow down and pause. I have to take the time to pause and examine myself to see if I am doing what I need to do for myself. I also need to pause to see whether my plans and strategies are working in this season or need adjusting. I believe I have a great plan for my self-care, and it wasn’t that the plan failed; my execution needed to change. We have to remember that different seasons call for different things, so to truly care for ourselves, we need to continuously assess what is needed in this season.

I am saddened by what I lost this past month. While I have recovered a few things, some of the most costly are still gone. Still, I am determined to learn from this. To be more intentional. To slow down. To choose differently. I love the work I do. And March was a lot. So, I am left with this question, one I will keep asking: How do we do the work our souls must have and live well?

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