PORTFOLIO

“Drink the Water”

by Sammi Cains

At a trip to the doctor a few years ago, I sat patiently as my nurse searched for a vein in both of my arms. Eventually, she grabbed my doctor, hoping she’d have better luck. "Have you eaten today?" my doctor asked. "No, not yet," I replied. "Have you drank any water?" she continued. "I had a coffee?" I replied, searching for the tiniest bit of validation for my efforts. "You're dehydrated and your veins are collapsed. We can't draw blood, you'll have to come back." "Okay, sorry!" I pleaded for forgiveness. "It's alright." My doctor said kindly, if not equally befuddled. "You do know it's 11am, don't you?"

Ahhhhh, time. How quickly you pass and how little of you I feel I ever have. There I sat in my doctor's office, proud of myself for even making this appointment to begin with, only to be reminded by a medical professional that I had failed to fulfill the most basic of human needs before noon.

I was what some call a "workaholic." I preferred "driven" or "ambitious" to the former adjective.

Regardless, for close to a decade, I took this “workaholic” label as a badge of honor.

Being a workaholic meant waking up and checking my work email in bed, working all day, and updating my to do list in bed as I fell asleep.

Never-ending work schedule aside, my badge of honor also meant neglecting my domestic chores, ordering takeout for all my meals because who has time to cook, let alone shop for groceries?!, and waving goodbye to my social life.

I was, however, not totally blinded by my ambition. I knew my schedule and my diet weren’t super healthy. Regardless, when I stepped on the scale at that same fateful visit to the doctor, the number gave me the quite the shock. The results weren’t great.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't JUST upset about the number, I know better than the give the scale too much weight (pun intended) – what felt way worse was what the number and subsequent collapsed veins conversation revealed about how I managed my time… or rather, how I didn’t manage it. In my determination to become smarter and see my dreams come true, I’d begun completely neglecting myself.

We all have aspirations, things that give us purpose. But a lot of times, in an effort to be successful, we lose sight of ourselves. So these days, I wake up and run before work. I leave work at a decent hour and cook my food. I don’t interrupt conversations with my friends when we're out to take a work call. And I shut my laptop, put down my phone, and sleep, because my beloved to-do list can wait. My health and well-being cannot. I also drink a lot more water.