Leave it to the Government Shutdown to get me to finally trim my toenails. It’s a habit of hygiene that all my life has been perpetually tedious, even though it only requires five minutes every few weeks. The fact that there has always been a mental block insisting that I don’t have time for a five-minute task every few weeks, says less about my laziness than it does about my ability to prioritize myself. I think about the emails to strangers, the articles about topics I don’t really care about, the smalltalk with people who I have nothing in common with aside from the mutual understanding that we both don’t really care to know each other better. What did they do to deserve more attention today than my own toenails? Or my journal? Or my parents? It makes me wonder if the selflessness that I practice is misplaced, or if my attention is hijacked by my propensity for unboxing the new. I appear each unfamiliar encounter is a mirage of endless possibilities, and I never learn, even when most of them end up being a time-sucking thinkpiece or an errand that I have to get to now that I know about it. I feel like I need to be way more intentional about where I direct my generosity of time and energy, and as a default prioritize myself. This may seem obvious to some, but it’s completely against my own nature. I was raised to look for those in need, to always approach people trusting that merely the chance of our encounter meant that they were worth the time. But the result of that means I piecemeal myself faster than I can regenerate. I offer help for things that I’m not great at and don’t have anything to do with me, at the expense of the things that I’m actually meant to contribute to the universe. I spend time with random people while I carry the daily guilt of not calling home enough. I lose sleep over things I see on the internet that don’t have any real consequence to me or even the greater scope of society. But still, I’m always in a hurry. I sprint-walk everywhere I go, get impatient in lines, talk hella fast, eat hella fast, and don’t always get a full-night’s rest. In exchange for what? The chance of serendipity? My fault for reading The Alchemist and probably misinterpreting the role of coincidence. Over the past years, taking time for myself has meant being a better person to radiate out to the rest of the world. Finna get grounded in 2019. Starting with my talon-ass toenails.