I finally decided to give Netflix's Queer Eye a chance during my stay in Germany with my friend during the holidays. I'm obsessed now to the point I want to improve my self-care. I'm fixing the little things I haven't paid much attention to as a home office girl. The only problem is I don't earn enough to do a full-on transformation. So, I'm doing this in parts. I'm changing what is in my control to improve, at least in some aspects of my life.
I don't know where this will take me or how much time it'll take, but as a sceptic of the self-improvement industry, I would like to bring perspective and nuance to the conversation. Yes, self-care is important. However, it used to be the case that with my full-time job, blogging and teaching Spanish, I thought I could get away with low maintenance, but darn it! It feels nice to add two extra steps to my skincare. There, I said it.
We will skip the tragic background and stick to the modern day. I don't have a job that pays much, I don't own a place, and like many, I don't know what else to do other than hustle to survive. With this 5-part-series, I'm hoping we can all learn something about looking after ourselves with what we have, or, well, you can just read to kill time (it may even count as self-care).
It would be a dream come true if Bobby could come to my rented flat and fix it for me (if he isn't scared of the mould!) But it is time to be realistic and start DIYing. So, I bought a bookshelf. We used to have one shelving unit for clothes and books. Now, we have one for books and the other shelves for clothes! That was my functional re-decoration of the day.
It didn’t take long. I went to a second-hand furniture store today and found the perfect bookcase straight away. It took me about half an hour to move all the books to their new shelves, and my first Queerish mission was done! And as I finished, I felt a small sense of accomplishment and an even bigger sense of emptiness. It got existential. First, I thought this part was going to be harder. Second, in the grand scheme of my problems currently, this was very minor. I think it is important to recognise that not every success makes you a fully realised person. No matter what, I’m happy, one step at a time.