Lately.

The start of a new year- typically filled with optimism, new beginnings and a whole lot of green vegetables. But so far in 2018, I’ve felt a bit anxious, un-easy and filled with more cookies than kale. So this year hasn’t been off to the best start for me emotionally, and I feel the only way for me to face that, is to address it and move on like a the lead singer of a boy band on the brink of extinction.

I’ll start off by saying I am happy. I am fresh into marriage and truly loving it, happy with my job and other endeavors. But what keeps me up at night other than binge watching “Game of Thrones” are the thoughts “Where am I going?”, “Am I good enough?”, and “What SHOULD I be doing?”.  A consistent theme in my life has been comparing myself to others and their doings, and feeling inadequate when mine don’t seem to be up to par with “theirs”. Lately, I’ve found myself on a lot more Instagram benders, watching other people’s lives while mine slowly passes me by. Time I could spend bettering my future is spent admiring the lives of people I don’t even know. And I’m anxious while I’m doing it, because I know it’s not time well spent, and that leaves me beating myself up and feeling badly about my laziness. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

I saw an article on Facebook the other day (yes, another social media bender!!), from a 26-year-old Australian woman named Holly, who was dying of cancer. It was all over my newsfeed, so I clicked on it while I was eating breakfast. There was one part in there that hit me like a truck:

“Life isn’t mean to be lived through a screen nor is it about getting the perfect photo…enjoy the bloody moment, people! Stop trying to capture it for everyone else.”

Stop trying to capture it for everyone else.

I know that social media is a business for a lot of people, and I think that’s a really cool thing about the world we live in today. But I have come to the realization that I am not one of those people. I don’t think I want to be a professional blogger, or "influencer" (it’s hard work and I give those people who have made a legitimate success out of it their props). And not because I think those are dirty words- there’s a lot of bloggers I look up to and keep up with regularly. I struggle with this a lot every day- in that I don’t know exactly what I want to be yet. And if I don’t know, how can I convey a specific “image” online if I don’t even know what that is yet? I just want to be me- un-photoshopped, un-calculated. 

Here’s what I do know:

I want to write. I want to impact someone’s life. I want to do something someday that will change the lives of women and other underrepresented groups. I want to give back all the kindness and support that has been given to me. I want to chase a dream and a goal and not a an Instagram-able life. I want to be more present in moments-big or small. I want to not be so hard on myself when I do find myself binging on social media- but I want it to be for positivity and motivation and knowledge. Not to make me feel inadequate and bad about myself. I want to enjoy and capture moments for myself- without needing the validation of the world and their likes.

This isn’t a vendetta against social media. I am very grateful to it, because I have met some truly amazing people- some of which have become my greatest friends that I talk to every single day. I love communicating with people everyday- I always got my seat moved in class for "excessive talking" so this makes a lot of sense. But in this year, I am actively going to try to enjoy the moment instead of capturing it for someone else. Yes, I will still share by beauty routines, my matcha-lattes, an outfit I feel bomb in, something funny that happened to me in the meat department at Kroger, or a new lipstick I’m excited about. I enjoy sharing those things, and getting to interact with people. But I am no longer going to force it. This may mean less ~content~, but that means that maybe I’m out enjoying the moment for myself a little more.

I don’t want to wait until something catastrophic happens in my life to realize these things, and I think that’s why I wanted to write this all down. I needed to hear it, and maybe someone out there needed to as well. This is my reminder and your reminder that we are not deemed inadequate or less because our lives don’t look like someone else’s. Life has different stages and plans for everyone, and I intend to seek mine out, starting now (okay...gonna finish this coffee first).