Taking Care of Ourselves

6 June 2025

Early this afternoon, I took advantage of a break in the showers and thunderstorms that have been rolling through since early this morning. My mission: to cut the too-long hanging wire off our hummingbird feeder and replace it with an S-hook.

I accomplished my mission, dropping the hanging wire on the deck floor in the process. After rehanging the feeder, I ever-so-casually reached down to retrieve the hanging wire, somehow managed to overshoot it, and lost my balance. (I’m sure it had nothing to do with my desire to be done and get back to my office.)

I ended up sprawled on the deck. (sigh)

Taking Care of Ourselves is an original blog post by Ellen M. Gregg, published on 6 June 2025 on ellenmgregg.com. #selfcare #wellbeing #ego

An aside: Although the image above is from Canva Pro, it depicts the same feeder we have.

Assess and embarrassed share the same three-letter word

I scooted the short distance to the steps so I could sit comfortably and assess myself. Even as I was determining that I was still physically sound, albeit shaking with adrenaline, I noticed I was embarrassed. I have a lot of neighbors, and a couple of them were outside, just a couple of doors down. Did they see me fall?

Apparently, no one was the wiser. Thank goodness for that.

Another thing to be thankful for: My assessment revealed nothing broken, although I hit my right knee pretty hard when I went down. I could feel it starting to swell in complaint. (I don’t blame it a bit.)

After washing my hands and drinking some water, I got back to work.

Pushing through doesn’t always work.

I worked until lunch, keeping my knee bent to keep it mobile. Then, I got lunch for myself and helped my mom get hers (just a reheat). As soon as I was done, I returned to the office with the intent of pushing through the end of the day.

I could do it. I could push through. However, I can feel it would be to my detriment. What I really need to do is put my feet up and give my knee a rest. My ego offered up a whole bunch of “but” statements to convince me otherwise. I’m choosing to take care of myself.

As soon as I publish this post, I’m heading for my recliner and putting my feet up. There are several things I had hoped to accomplish on this admin afternoon, and yet they’ll have to wait. Taking care of myself is more important.

I’m sharing this in case you need to choose to take care of yourself, too. It’s an odd thing with humans, how we somehow feel we need permission to take care of ourselves. Consider this your permission slip, if need be.

Thanks for reading. Take care of yourself.