Over the past year, I’ve been making an effort to improve my mental and physical wellbeing. This began with me starting therapy in July of 2025. I’ve found that the improvements to my mental health that I’m seeing as a result of therapy are also making it easier to take care of the rest of me.

Mental Health

I started therapy at the beginning of July last year and I’m seeing a lot of progress so far. Taylor recently told me it seemed like I’m in “AP Therapy” or that I’m “speedrunning therapy”. It felt nice for my improvements to be perceived like that.

Over the past month or so, I made it my goal to keep the kitchen clean. Not letting dirty dishes pile up, wiping down the counters and stove, taking the trash out promptly when it’s full, things like that. Unsurprisingly that has also made it easier to cook regularly which has helped cut down on the number of times per week that we eat out. We also finally replaced our slowly breaking toaster oven with an air fryer which has been nice.

In the past week, I’ve done a lot of cleaning around the rest of the house. I’ve dismantled many longstanding “piles” and put the contents of which away in their rightful homes. There’s still more I’d like to do, but the house looks great right now and it feels really good to see some parts of the floor that I haven’t seen in a while. The goal going forward will be to make a habit of keeping things clean like this.

This spot was previously occupied by piles

Physical Fitness

I went to the doctor at the end of June for the first time since the pandemic started. They told me my blood pressure was too high, which sent me on a month long anxiety spiral worrying that I was going to have a heart attack and die. The positive that came out of this is that it spurred me to start exercising again. Since then, I’ve been going on a brisk 30 minute walk 5 days a week. Now, nearly 3 months later, I’ve been consistently exercising for the longest period of time in my adult life.

What’s really helped me keep this habit up so far has been getting some nice, comfortable walking shoes that are a color I like. I also got some nice socks and a few more workout shirts so that I have enough to get through a whole week without having to wash clothes. I got a polyester hat as well that I can wear when I walk or hike and not have to worry about getting it sweaty.

I can be seen walking briskly in Arroyo Grande in my teal shoes

My goal here is to stay active and get my blood pressure down. I don’t care to “lose weight”. I’d like to get back to a place where I can comfortably do an 8 mile day hike. A longer term goal is to get into backpacking…

I also still need to make a dentist appointment and get my eyes checked. Soon!

Self Care

I’ve gotten a few new skincare prodcuts in the past week as something to enjoy to balance out all the cleaning I’ve been doing. I enjoy stealing some of Taylor’s sugar body scrubs from time to time, so I figure why not get one for myself. I found one from Ouai that smells so good that I ended up getting a body lotion of the same scent. I have a facial toner and moisturizer, an under eye cream, a beard oil, a body lotion, and a foot cream. I keep all these products in the bathroom in a little basket I got from Daiso. After my shower, I take the basket to the bedroom, open a YouTube video on my tablet, and go through my routine applying all the various products.

Watching Safiya visit every hotel in Las Vegas while I moisturize

Sometimes there are those days where I just really don’t want to take a shower. I’m finding that having a routine like this with products that bring me joy makes showering something I’m looking forward to rather than just something I have to do in order to not be stinky.

Conclusion

Hey, taking care of yourself is important! Is anyone aware of this? Over time, there are various aspects of my wellbeing that I’ve begun to neglect, but it feels good to give myself the attention I deserve.

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