"The art of resting the mind, and the power of dismissing it from all care and worry, is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great women." -Captain J.A. Hadfield

I washed my makeup brushes this morning.

For those among my readers who are neither women nor drag queens, nor persons living with either a woman or a drag-clad man (or a transgendered person, clown, or other individual who may wear makeup on occasion), allow me to explain. One engages in the makeup-brush-washing ritual after the bristles have become intolerably muddied, from holding various colors over time.

The first makeup application after a wash is glorious: the color deposit is pure, and the product texture is lighter on the face. If there were time to wash the brushes every day, surely every makeup owner would.

So merciless is my schedule, I'm lucky if I even get my makeup on before leaving the house. I often bring the makeup bag with me in the morning and paint myself around noon, if I remember to stop the madness that early to get ready for the day that's half over.

Given the intense demands on my time and energy, I usually plan to wash my brushes only every two months. Then, once the five-minute task makes it onto the mental or even paper list, I usually take another month or so to accomplish it. Having spent the past few weeks wanting to wash my brushes and not doing it, I woke up this morning knowing I could stand the wait no longer.

Though I struggled to get out of the house at a decent hour - a problem of mine since I became self-employed two years ago and stopped having a forced show-up time - I placed my work-related anxiety on hold and took care of this very unimportant matter.

This was a huge moment for me. Most mornings, if there's a household job to be done that takes only five minutes - five minutes that I had the previous evening but didn't use because I was tired - I berate myself for having relaxed the night before, in lieu of tending to that particular matter. And then I deny myself the triumphant feeling that comes only from checking something off the to-do list ... all because I stubbornly insist that I should have done it when I had all the time in the world.

Imposing such guilt on an already depleted energy source (me!) can, of course, only serve to further weaken it. If not for the few moments of relaxation that I do steal, I would never stop going. I would be a machine. And I don't want that for my life. It's giving the human, tired me a vote that will make me great. I just don't always remember that.

But today, I was compassionate with my inner Katie, at least in the moment I spent deciding whether to wash my brushes or to punish myself. I realized that not only am I allowed to come home and crash into a pile of non-activity in the evenings, but also that I have to do it, just to maintain the perpetually half-awake state that carries my only-mildly-grouchy self through the daylight hours.

If I start forcing myself to do those dishes, paint these toenails, and swim those 400 meters (yes, I'm still fantasizing about being Michael Phelps!) every night, I'll fall apart. 

And everyone knows there are some mental breakdowns that even the cleanest makeup brushes can't conceal.