Take care…
I’ve always had an issue with the saying, “take care.” It just bothers me.
About 15 years ago, when I first met my husband, as we were finishing a phone conversation, he said “take care!”
When I hung up, I couldn’t believe how much that phrase stung. I was actually unsettled by his sign-off from our conversation. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember how I felt. I felt like we had connected. I felt we had grown closer during that conversation. Then he said something so, well, neutral.
I know, I know… “take care” is a nice sentiment. But I realized at that moment that it felt impersonal to me.
Take care! It just seems so flippant and detached…something you say to someone you don’t know very well.
It felt like I was building a deeper relationship with my then-boyfriend on a phone call, only to be told “take care” at the end. I was offended! Didn’t he have anything more creative to say to me? 😂
I brought it up to him the next time we spoke. I was silly about it, kind of laughing at myself for having such an adverse reaction to his obviously kind-hearted “take care!” at the end of our chat.
Ever since then, I have been curious about what do my feelings surrounding this phrase mean about me.
Why does this bother me?
At the heart, ‘take care’ means the person is telling you to watch over yourself. Meaning YOU are important and worth caring for. That they want to make sure you are caring for yourself and hope you take initiative in your own care.
I still don’t use the phrase myself, but when I hear it, I try to imagine that the other person is genuinely telling me to care for myself not just using it as a flippant good-bye. I remind myself they like me enough to ask me to care for myself. I mean, how lovely is that?
Who knew such a short little phrase could have so much baggage?? 😉
I find it SO interesting to get under the things that cause a reaction in us—the good feelings, the tense feelings, all the feelings. It’s so important to excavate why we react the way we do.
Taking care of ourselves is the highest form of “self care.” Taking care of ourselves indicates we are the only ones who can truly care for our own needs. So often we are waiting for someone to notice we need something, instead of vocalizing it ourselves. Clients often say to me that they are disappointed by the way things go because, as it turns out, in retrospect, they can identify that they were romanticizing the situation, building up expectations in their mind. When we expect others to step up and take care of us, that sometimes gives us a hall pass to not do something for ourselves what we expect others to do. We can hold on to resentment when others don’t step up to meet our unvocalized expectations.
At the end of the day, I have learned that “take care” is actually the highest form of respect. The other person values me SO MUCH, they want me to take care of myself so that I stay well.
If that isn’t love, connection, care, I don’t know what is.
