you and i are making a deal right now.

hi. i'm so tired. i've been swamped the past few weeks and i've felt this major shift in my ability to be present with my family, so i took a break from screens and writing and everything else. it felt necessary and important.

here's the thing- i wish so badly that i could be effortlessly incredible at everything i do, but i can't and i'm not because i'm a regular human being.

i'd love it if preparing excellent material for my class at bsu was something i could throw together in my brain while i was falling asleep, and my collaboration deadlines never fell behind. i wish parenting teddy felt like second nature to me, and writing well on my blog took five minutes during one of his naps, and the thought of cooking a meal or cleaning my house didn't make me want to shove bamboo up my fingernails. i wish i was better at time management and wasn't interested in hulu or netflix or facebook or instagram, and could fit everything interesting to me on my calendar, but i can't.

and while i reeally want to be awesome at all of these little side things going on in my life right now, i want more to not be a mom who spends most of her time glued to her phone, or stressing about choreography, or checking her email constantly, or worrying that too much time between blog posts has passed, right? like, that person sounds like the worst, right? i can't think of any gig, or social media site that should ever be more interesting than teddy pretending to be a puppy, which he does 75% of the day lately.

and my instinct is to give up on everything but family- like, if you can't do it 100%, then don't do it at all. but that's dumb too, right? it is. and the crazy thing is, i know so so many people, women especially, who feel this way. like they're drowning, but trying really hard to look put together because they don't want anyone to know that they're human, and having a horrible day (or month, or year, or whatever).

so you and i are making a deal right now. i'm going to take it easy on myself, and so are you. we're not going to think degrading things about ourselves, and we're going to do our best to build each other up. we're going to look at our phones less, and give our loved ones more. because the internet is hollow and fake, and our people are real, and warm, and something we can wrap our arms around and feel something with. we're going to try to not eat garbage (all the time), and find one beautiful thing in the mirror every morning, and other shiz like that.

what are your tips for being more in touch with the things most important in your life?
i want to care more about the real things and less about the fake ones.
xo