Natasha

I know that 2025 really Kung Fu Panda’d my life because I didn’t do any of my annual wellness exams, not-a-one. Crazy thing is I didn’t even pay attention to this fact until I recently decided to schedule an eye exam and it showed that my last appointment was in November 2024. I thought there was a system error.

Nope.

As a woman, there’s a lot of specialty appointments we schedule annually, and I’ve been scheduling these for decades, so this brain fart is alarming, because I’m right in that sweet spot of life where I’m no longer a whipper snapper and I’m not yet in the realm of “seasoning” where I would be calling someone a whipper snapper, but I’m old enough where things start popping, locking, and flashing— and not in the good ways.

I spend most hours of my day tapping on a laptop, which means my risk factors start playing hopscotch.

What I’ve realized is that in 2025 and these first several months of 2026, I prioritized everyone and everything but myself. Being an entrepreneur, college professor, author, caregiver, and a few extra titles (that don’t pay the bills), means I’m pulled in numerous directions like Stretch Armstrong, but unlike Stretch, I don’t just go back to normal after folks are done pulling on me.

I know better.

I know what happens when I defer self-care. I know the health scares. I know the ER visits and hospital stays. I know that this is not the time and I’m not the age to play footsy under the table with all of the creepy things that try to get tagged in for a WWE Smackdown in our bodies.

A few weeks ago I rushed and had an eye exam and retinal imaging because staring at screens for 18+ hours a day is a nasty recipe. Everything came back a-okay but I think I’m long overdue for getting someone to explain why I feel like an X-Files survivor.

Recently, I met with my doctor and she exclaimed, “I haven’t seen you in over a year and a half.” Telling a doctor that you’ve been super busy and forgot about them normally isn’t that big of a deal. But when that same doctor was aggressively helping you create a wellness plan that would also help create the structure needed to put up some blockers to the busyness and stress load, is just rude and reckless.

I did notice that she side-eyed me, and a nervous giggle slipped out before I could catch it.

Whew, by the time she was done telling me all of the lab work and referrals she was ordering for me, so that I could play catch-up, I felt that guttural “Uugh” forming in my throat, because I couldn’t help but to think to myself, “Dang am I gonna be poked, prodded, flipped, flapped, and examined for the rest of the year?”

But that’s what happens when you disappear from your wellness ecosystem.

And to think, I’m paying for all of that poking, prodding, and carrying on. In some spaces, there’s a special name for that. Ohhh I hope nobody clutched their pearls over that. I tend to defer to humor over gloom.

Let’s get back to my doctor.

I truly appreciate my doctor. She goes above and beyond and isn’t one to dilly dally. If she’s not sure about something she’s gonna send me to someone who should know the answer. She’s not going to wait and see what happens after several months or years trying a treatment, or if something might be this-or-that. She’s also not going to throw drugs at something and hopes something sticks and works. She’s looking for tools and options that can help my body do what it was designed to do— not mask or pacify the culprits my body is battling.

It’s great to have a doctor that also advocates for you. Lawd, if you’re a melanated woman, you know the underlines and highlighted marker swipes that punctuate that last statement.

My doctor’s like a good spades partner.

We don’t do much chit chatting, but I’m okay with that, because I know that every time she opens my file, she’s rolled up her sleeves, is in a zone, and ready to get down to work on the mission of wellness. She doesn’t just want to keep me alive; she wants me healthy and thriving— responding not reacting— staying ahead of things, not trying to play catchup.

A lot can happen in 1.5 years.

Being too busy…

too distracted…

too overwhelmed…

too stressed…

too depressed…

is costly.

I know firsthand.

You’re no good to anyone if you’re not alive. Nobody’s getting answers to their questions, solutions to their problems, all while standing by your grave, crypt, niche, or the spot where your loved ones sprinkled you into the wind.

They might be thinking, “Dang, she left before we could finish that project” or “I wonder if we can get access to her laptop so we can submit that RFP bid,” but only the ignoramuses and sloppy drunk revelers at your post-repast celebratory tribute would let that slip out of their mouths.

What I’m Working On

A few weeks ago I mapped out my new ‘Natasha Plan’ and began putting in place the infrastructure I need to mindfully deposit into the spaces and lives that depend on my active engagement, but in a responsible way, that stops depleting me and internally aging me.

I know burning both ends and the middle of my candle has been a bad habit of mine for decades — I can quickly search and find several blog posts over the past 20 years, and this habit is actually more like an addiction. But this addiction doesn’t leave behind baggies, needles, bottles, wrappers, and other evidence.

I had another coming to Jesus moment, and I have to be honest— I’m not trying to kick it with him on the flip side right now. I mean, seriously, there’s a whole lot of living and learning I want to do before I commit to that eternal divine reassignment. He can come here; I’m just not trying to fast-track the part where I go there before he comes here.

Role Modeling: What We Inherit and Pass On

I’m two years older than my father was when he passed away decades ago from a stress and diet-related heart attack, hours after his gym workout.

Today his birthday!

My dad had plans to take a break from the grind of work, catch-up, and make-up, to take long-deferred vacations to celebrate living and the gift of his life. He took his last breath, weeks after his birthday, weeks after my sister graduated from 5th grade, months before his planned “living la vida loca” trip, more than a year before the Disney World trip he promised my younger sister. He left before we could make the family trip to the Bahamas.

He left years before seeing his ideas and visions curated and manifested.

That left regrets.

I don’t want more regrets.

To do my part, I’ve cut back on my work hours. I’ve set focus and app downtime modes on my Apple devices. That Shortcuts app has been a great addition to my healthy boundaries and accountability. I’m not playing with my prayer and meditation times, office hours, gym time, and just-me-time. Alexa even barges in and reminds me when it’s time to shut things down and give it a go tomorrow. I smirk every time she recites the message I crafted.

I’ve started to add more signs of life around me and my spaces —plants, colors, images, scents. I’m taking naps or resting breaks whenever my mind and body need it. I’m delegating more and gracefully declining excess requests, because my title isn’t Professional Juggler or Magician.

I have a lot more to untangle and set aside, especially in my personal life. But I won’t allow that energy to consume me. I will address what I can when I can, and put on notice the rest.

What About You?

What habits, practices, behaviors, addictions, and lifestyle choices are you role modeling for the children in your life? Will they adopt the hustle and grind without realizing the mental, emotional, and physical sacrifice?

Pressure to Prove and Perform

I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I don’t need to prove I’m loyal, a hard worker or that I can multitask— I can’t believe the decades I spent pitching those as some of my résumé selling points.

Being driven by excellence doesn’t mean driving myself onto the fast track of the dirt nap highway.

Clients can feel urgency without making it my emergency.

They aren’t the center of my world. They don’t complete me. I don’t live to serve them.

And let’s be real: I won’t be providing business operations advisory with Oda Mae Brown as the conduit to relay messages to my clients. Whoopi Goldberg played the heck out of that role in Ghost, by the way!

When I exit this fleshy shell, the last folks I’m returning to visit are my clients, unless I’m haunting them for unpaid invoices. No offense to any of them but they better remember that haunting point. *cue side eye*

And I know if any of them are reading this, they’re smirking, if not outright laughing. Even the ones I lovingly fired.

On a serious note: Nothing and no one should consume my time and deplete my energy to the point where I sacrifice my wellness. If I don’t put on my oxygen mask first, we’re all gonna be in trouble.

And that mantra of, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” comes with a lot of fine print that most folks don’t see, on this side of life.

Oh and let’s not skip over the fact that sometimes family can feel like you’re one of the Croods. That sleep pile scene is a heck of an analogy.

Maybe you can relate.

Wellness Check

1. Have you been taking care of yourself this year?
2. Have you taken all of your annual exams?
3. Have you set and reinforced your personal and professional boundaries?
4. Have you chosen to live and not just exist?
5. Have you chosen to thrive and not just survive?

If you said “no” or “I don’t know” to any or all of those questions, why?

If you’re anything like me, you’re making excuses but trying to convince yourself they’re valid reasons with no other reasonable alternative solutions.

Let’s pause and reflect.

These questions aren’t meant to make you feel guilty. They’re meant to help you notice where you’ve quietly disappeared. Less of us and more of everything and everyone else.

That’s not selflessness, it’s self-abandonment.

Don’t look at your calendar and lament the fact that we’re seven months into the year. Focus on this moment.

What can you commit to today? What can you do today to ensure your wellness is your top priority?

Even without health, vision, and dental insurance, or the money to pay for lab work and healthcare, think of the small things you can do to take care of you.

1. Which things can you delegate or decline?
2. Who can you spend more time around and who should you avoid more often?
3. Which items can you begin swapping out of your diet so your body struggles less?
4. Which words can you stop speaking over yourself, your family, and your home? Which healing and empowering words can you speak instead?
5. What healthy bedtime routine could you adopt to help you unwind and sleep better?
6. What could you read, listen to, or view to inspire and enrich yourself? To calm your nerves? To decompress?
7. How often can you get outside for vitamin D, air, and others signs of life? Just a casual stroll, ride, or glide. Or just seated and still, taking it all in.
8. Can you stretch your body a few minutes and few times a day? You can learn a lot from the Yogis. Our bodies weren’t designed to be stiff and locked up while alive. Don’t practice being a corpse.

I leave you for now with these parting words, a quote from Chanel Miller:

I’m done licking crumbs. It’s time to protect the whole cake! 💗

Love always,

Natasha