Our blog isn’t beautiful and that’s okay. Our blog isn’t perfect and that’s okay. We don’t have a Pinterest perfect house, we don’t even have Pinterest perfect pins. Our blog photos are mediocre and our writing is average. I’m not boss babe and my husband doesn’t make $603,452 with a side hustle.
Sure we have blog. And for months and months and months we’ve been dreaming and working towards making it the real deal – you know?
But not much has really happened. We both work full time jobs. My family is in an incredibly broken place and has been for the past two years. I struggle with depression, sometimes manageable, sometimes severe. And this year has added just a few more layers of brokenness and tiredness. A pandemic. Racial tension and injustice. Political unrest. Some days we’ve done good just to get through the work day, shed a few tears, and get a few hours of sleep.
In effort to distract myself, I’ve spent (sadly) many hours scrolling through Pinterest, wishing my like was more like the beautiful story told by perfect snippets of curated lives. Pretty, clean, bright, happy, airy, dreamy…untouchable.
Or, if not that, then even like the posts that admit life is hard, but make the hard and ugly look surprising desirable. And the truth is, we can all desire the hard – the good that comes from it – for a moment. For a moment we find courage and inspiration welling up within us. For a moment we are convinced that we can face the hurt and pain and darkness….and one day, it’s going to make something beautiful. We’ll get to that perfect life, eventually.
But just as abruptly as we’re jarred from our sleep by a fire alarm, we’re startled from our silent reverie by a text from “that” person. Or by the realization that it’s 6:34 and dinner has been made, groceries haven’t been put up, and laundry is laying all over the floor. Heck, the milk even spent the night in the car.
The momentary respite, that brief swell of courage, it was a lie. Anger and frustration creeps in. What we don’t realize is that just as a fire alarm signals danger, the sudden sadness, overwhelm, tiredness, stress, and disappointment we feel when jerked our of our daydream is our internal fire alarm. We’re not okay, we’re in danger.
That lovely picturesque Pinterest life has been my daydream. And for quite some time now, I’ve viewed our blog as the means to make my daydream a reality. With every near miss, I relive my disappointment. My disappointment in life, in the blog, in my circumstances, in brokenness and pain, in lifeless dreams.
And why wouldn’t I be disappointed? If my expectations are built on others’ momentary, curated perfections, then even the best of circumstances wouldn’t compare.
I am done living this lie. It’s destroying me and it’s destroying the life, and the good, that I do have. My smoke alarm is going off constantly. So I’m done, done letting that be my expectation, done letting it consume me, done letting it tell me that what I have and who I am isn’t good enough.
And I refuse to perpetuate that for anyone else. I never want someone to visit our blog and feel envious. Or less than. Or not enough. Or like I’m living a perfect life and they’re not.
Because it’s not true. Not even for one second. We want our blog to be a blessing to others. And it can’t be that if it looks like we’ve got it all figured out and put together and we’re here to help you put your act together. Not in the least.
We are right there with you. Learning, living a crazy life with so many ups and down, and trying to find joy and meaning in it all.
So no, our blog isn’t perfect, nor all that beautiful, and it never will be. And that’s okay.
