Before you feel bad about yourself make sure you aren’t comparing your behind-the-scenes with someone's highlight real. In this age of the internet, we sometimes forget that what we see online is 99.9% of the time their highlight reel. People think I have it all together but what you see online is my highlight reel. You don’t see the days I can’t get out of bed, forget to shower, and brush my hair. We don’t talk about the days I get brain zippy zappies because I forgot to take my meds. Or even the days I self-sabotage by eating junk food for a week straight. I don’t talk about the days I have such bad anxiety taking out my trash feels like a herculean effort. Today I’m cleaning a depression house…. My own house. I don’t talk about that. I don’t get online when I’m feeling like shit.
I disappear from the public eye a lot, sometimes for really
long periods at a time. But I don’t tell you why I disappeared. I just leave
you to your own devices and let you think whatever you will. My life is not nearly
as together as people think it is.
I go inward. I’ve always been like that. I’m not bottling it
up. There was once a time when people used my feelings against me. So, I
learned to go inward when I’m struggling. My behind-the-scenes is just like
yours. And so is every single person on social media. My relationship with my kids
gets a lot of attention because we’re still really close. But trust me we all
wanted to punch each other in the face at times. We still at times look at the
other person and wonder if their brain is on layaway because they don’t appear
to have possession of it. They were messy as kids, sometimes still are, and so
am I. They yelled and screamed growing up which always led to me yelling back.
I had more than one parent-teacher conference courtesy of my child being an
asshole. I made more than one teacher cry because they were so incredibly
stupid and petty. I wasn’t an easy Mom and still today am not always easy to
deal with.
My daughter is the most beautiful person on the planet but
parenting the me out of her was like beating my head bloody on a giant rock. Michael
is my sensitive bean who was stuck so far up my ass I couldn’t pee in peace. Christian
was my kid that made me question my sanity. I wouldn’t change him for anything
but mans was not the easiest to understand. My kids are dope human beings and
they mean the absolute world to me. But raising them was an adventure and the
hardest thing I’ll probably ever do. Getting pregnant as a teenager was
probably the dumbest thing I have ever done. Those early years were so hard,
and I messed it up so badly. Sometimes it was immaturity, sometimes terrible,
money decisions, terrible relationships, drugs, and alcohol, you name it. But
the one thing I did that seems to be what got us here and sealed our fate as a
close family. Is that I stood before them as a human being who didn’t know all
the answers. Sometimes I didn’t even know what the questions were, to be
honest. Did that make my highlight reel? No way. Haha.
Big C and I loved each other but man did we have our
problems. Did it make it into this blog? No. Because while he could be a giant
dumbass the world didn’t need to know about it. There were times I wanted to
punch him in the face. I didn’t. But sometimes I was so sick of his stupid face
that choking him seemed like a good idea. We ultimately split up and remained
good friends who trust each other endlessly. But we had all the normal
relationship problems that all of you do. We still have days when we can’t
stand the other person for a minute. You’re going to get pissed at the people
in your life it happens. Just because someone doesn’t put it on social media
doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. It’s just not part of our highlight reel so you
don’t know about it.
You shouldn’t feel bad if your reality looks different than
someone else. Maybe they look like they’re living a lavish lifestyle, but they
might be up to their ears in debt they can’t pay. Maybe they are skinny, you
envy that, but maybe they have an eating disorder you don’t know about. Maybe
they have the coolest clothes, but you don’t know that’s all the clothes they
have. Maybe their life looks ideal and perfect, but you don’t know that they
hate it. They’re dressed like they came out of a fashion magazine but would
give anything to look like you do.
Make sure you fall in love with your life. Because even with
its behind-the-scenes hardships it’s your life and it’s okay to love it. Even
if it doesn’t look like so and so’s on the internet. Your life is uniquely
yours and it’s something you should live every day. It’s normal to learn and
grow and to not want to advertise the bad parts. That’s perfectly okay. Don’t
put them in your highlight real. They don’t have to be public. But don’t forget
they also create lifelong memories so it’s important to live them. No one's highlight
reel makes up the memories that will keep your loved ones warm after you are
gone. It’s those dorky imperfections that made up your living world that they
will remember.
~Until next time, be good to each other.~