Important

"Charity, one of these days you're going to realize that you're important. Important things need to be taken care of."

I can't get his words out of my head.

I am a creature of habit. I have this issue of falling back into the same repetitive, exhausting, unhealthy pattern. I load my schedule. I sleep less, eat less. I book coffee dates and work and write and book more coffee dates. I run at 95 miles-an-hour until something breaks or snaps and I come to a screeching halt. I get sick or my car has trouble or I get dizzy and can't see straight. Even then sometimes I barely slow down enough to change a tire or grab a power nap before I start running again. If I'm being honest, I don't know why I do this.

". . . one of these days you're going to realize that you're important. Important things need to be taken care of."

I sat on his kitchen floor when he said it to me. Right after work, right before a meeting, I barely had an hour to grab a glass of water before I had to start moving again. I'd been dizzy and blurry-eyed for at least twenty-four hours, hunched over the toilet in the bathroom the night before because I felt like I was on the verge of throwing up all the food I hadn't eaten that day. I was running on four hours of sleep and a vanilla latte and what I guessed was my third wind, but I'd been too stressed to count how many I'd hit by that point.

So there I was, stretched thinner than anyone ever should be, describing my schedule for the rest of the weekend, trying to figure out where I'd fit in sleep and contemplating how much I actually needed to scrape by when I looked up. He had that look on his face. That one look that says, "I'm not judging you. But I do have an opinion and I know you won't listen to it so I'll just keep my mouth shut." I asked for it anyway. He shook his head, that look still clinging to his face.

"What are you thinking?"

"Charity, one of these days you're going to realize that you're important. Important things need to be taken care of."

I don't remember what I said after that, if I even spoke at all. I do remember leaving and blazing through the rest of the weekend in spite of the sore throat I caught the next day. But his words never left my head.

". . . you're important. Important things need to be taken care of."

He's right. I know he's right. It's rare that he isn't. But for whatever reason, I find his statement - however true - to be difficult to swallow. If I'm being honest, I don't buy it.

It's completely counter to everything that I believed for the first seventeen years of my life. I'm important. Okay. Though I know it's true, I still don't necessarily believe it. Does that make sense?

People don't just say stuff like that. Not to me anyway. And when they do I find it to be remarkably shallow, as though they feel obligated to affirm my worth in some way. But there was such a depth of sincerity in his words, something that was real. Though I can't for the life of me figure out what it was.

". . . Important things need to be taken care of."

Maybe I'm stubborn. Maybe I'm still clinging to lies that I believed. Maybe all the negative things that were said to me and spoken over me over the course of my life were just too many to be debunked by a few letters and words of encouragement. But they were certainly enough to get me thinking.

I am important. I need to take care of myself.

I can start by getting a good night's sleep.