For Women’s Health Week
Women’s Health Week is coming to an end, and I have done nothing about my own care. As a mother and businesswoman, I rarely have time to think about my health, let alone make it a priority. I have a long list of things I should probably have my doctor check, but I never book my visit.
In this overloaded world, I’ve added my own health to the endless laundry list of things that can wait until tomorrow. The truth is, I always put myself last. I am almost certain that I am not alone. I often ask my mother about what life was like for her at my age. Sometimes I’ll ask about my grandmother’s life.
My grandmother raised her brothers and sisters during the Second World War. She didn’t get past grade four in elementary school, but she managed to start a life in a country where she couldn’t speak the language. She gave birth to her first child in a country home without medical supervision. Her own health was never mentioned.
My mother grew up watching that silence and decided on something different. But it’s hard to escape generational habit. My mother goes to her annual physical but still waves off anything that scares her. “I’ll mention it next time,” she says, and next time becomes next year. And here I am, the supposed beneficiary of all that progress, with a calendar full of everyone else’s appointments and a three-week-old unanswered voicemail from my own doctor’s office. Three generations of women, three different relationships with our health, and yet, the same quiet thread runs through each: someone else always comes first.
So here is my small, unglamorous promise as this week comes to a close: I’m going to return the voicemail. I’m going to book the appointment I have been avoiding. And I’m going to do my best to stop treating my health like a line item that can be carried over to next quarter. Because the women and men who come after me — my daughter and son — are watching how I do this. They are learning from me what I owe myself.
Women’s Health Week ends tomorrow. The hashtags will quiet down. The world will go back to asking us to give everything we have. But the real campaign is the ordinary, repeated, almost boring act of writing our own names onto our own calendars and then showing up.