In 2021, when I was going through treatments for breast cancer, I would rest most days in my bed, my little children occasionally coming in to kiss me, making me feel lucky and more whole. Rest was surrendering into a softness that was more metaphorical than literal. This recovery time after treatments was the first time I ever truly allowed my worker-bee self to have gentle comfort during the day since I was a small child (exceptions for colds and the like, of course). It was also the first time as an adult that I knew in my heart that I needed love and care, mothering. The brutal treatments lasted for a year, which was short enough for me to endure them, and, very thankfully, long enough for me to develop the almost daily habit of caring for myself.

From the vantage point of my bed cluttered with books, I was able to truly see the unfolding mayhem in my un-prioritized life. Like other women I know, my bedroom became the repository for all of our home’s excess stuff when we had friends over, birthday parties, or when we just had to make our home presentable. Baskets of laundry (it was always folded by the time it made it to my room — a small win! — but not put away), cute-but-not-meant-for-stacking-on-a-bedroom-floor boxes piled high with papers, photos, articles and magazines, fabric and art supplies, kids’ drawings and school projects, clothes and toys to mend and repair, letters and old holiday cards, and more — you get it. Just all of the stuff that is hard to organize, especially when you don’t have the space, or, more importantly, the spare time to deal with it. In the corner I had a dedicated basket with a yoga mat, resistance bands, and all of that other good-intention stuff that a lot of us accumulate and don’t use, but the yoga mat did not have enough inches of floor space on which to unfurl (so that I could unfurl).

Life before I genuinely got it that I also matter in the constellation of my family was rife with intention. Walking, hiking, barre! Go plant-based! No more sugar! Meditate without thinking about the grocery list! Go to bed early! Read a book just for fun, not to learn something! Don’t eat the kids’ leftovers for lunch (or breakfast or dinner)! Oprah, who has been one of the very important women in my life since her show first aired, talks beautifully about intention à la Gary Zukav. I get it. I want to! I intend all sorts of things. But making time for them is so hard. In those years of self-neglect, I ate pretty healthily — an exception for chocolate — but I would always tell myself that I would exercise tomorrow (mañana, mañana). I gave up good sleep and ran on maybe a handful of hours per night for nearly decade in order to catch up on things I found essential (paying bills, responding to emails, moving mail and paperwork from uncategorized piles to other random piles, just trying to create order in my world, which for most of us, is like trying to stop a waterfall that must endlessly yield to gravity). 

The long-term sleep neglect probably rendered me legally insane, a conclusion which now seems to be a well known thing in the world but which I did not know for a very long time. So I ambled through my daily life like an insane and scatterbrained person, generally pretty happy, but deprived of the stability of Maslow’s triangle base. Over the years, I bought books on slow living and mindfulness, got meditation apps, got cute exercise leggings and sports bras, and accumulated an inordinate amount of healthy cookbooks that I much prefer to read in wonder and awe than actually use. I know I am among millions (or billions?) of hardworking and exhausted women who share these experiences. (Darlings — I salute you! Now please put your phone or laptop down and get some sleep.)

It’s not that I didn’t love and treasure myself, it’s just that it literally did not seem possible — or, notably, it felt flat-out selfish and impossible to schedule in time — to think about or do anything meaningful to care for myself. But during treatment, I finally yielded to the need to be cared for because I simply had no other choice. I just couldn’t keep going like that little train in the book from the 1930s.

One of the ways that I began to mother myself was coming to the realization that I did not make space for myself. Literal space and metaphorical space. Metaphorical space that would address the self-inflicted deprivation I wrote about earlier, but also space for me to just be. I needed an inspiring and beautiful physical space just for me, where I could have quiet and feel that it was mine, or at the very least, I could use it alone for some minutes everyday. 

When I became stronger, I spent some time each day going through the many books in my bedroom. Because we all know that bedrooms are meant to be our sanctuary to rest our weary heads, to let our unconscious minds spill into dreamland, and work out our conscious minds’ worries while our cells refresh and restore themselves. So! I set out to make my bedroom beautiful, a place of healing and serenity, a place where I could stretch out on that neglected yoga mat. 

After the big clean up, I only kept in my bedroom the books that I truly love, books that have no intense or heavy content, books that promote healing and serenity and the attaining of wisdom, and books that fill my soul with wonder. All of the other books were smooshed into the packed living room bookshelves. I went through the boxes and baskets, taking photos of things I knew I would want to remember but had to let go of. I put the essentials in closets and donated or recycled what we did not need to store for a lifetime. I saw my bedroom rug for the first time in ages (it’s lovely!). My old armchair got a beauty treatment in the form of a throw blanket. My bookcase moved to another room, and my IKEA desk drawers miraculously fit within a millimeter of their lives into my closet (which I now call ‘my desk,’ since all of my pens and stickies and stuff like that exist there, replete with a door that mercifully closes, sheltering me from the mess and the feeling of an endless to-do list in my new refuge). I bought the Danish bookcase I had been dreaming of for years, which was cosmically on sale.

All of my beloved books sat on the floor of my bedroom next to my armchair for a week until the bookcase components came in several boxes a week later. My family and I assembled it together — it was a lot like lego-building, so my kids were at the helm of that project. I lovingly and artfully assembled my books, treasures, framed photographs, and lamps into the bookcase. For me, it is a thing of beauty and a tremendous comfort. I repurposed a small side table for a lamp and a cup of tea next to my armchair — it brings me so much joy that everyone in my family can be found reading in that chair at some point or another. And my serene rug is now unencumbered and has more than enough space for my red yoga mat, which has gotten a lot of uncoordinated love since I gave it a proper home. Now I am careful to not let my space spill out of control again because it is my safe place, and it must be protected and cared for.

A sanctuary does not need to be a whole room, and it doesn’t require spending any money. It can be a corner of a room, the landing of a staircase, a balcony, a closet you can squeeze into, a chair in your garden, the space next to your bathtub or shower, or the counter where you dedicate space for a teapot and your favorite mug that are the stars in your comforting morning ritual. It can be your nightstand, upon which you put a sweet plant, a soft-lighted lamp, and a stack of books that nurture your soul. It should be anchored by mindfully placed items that signal to you that you matter and that your life and the personal environment you live in are deeply important. A sanctuary is a space for your heart, where you can take up space and feel your own love for yourself. Please create space for yourself to rest and feel loved and important. Our spaces are sacred. So are you.