Enough

Me in an absolutely posed selfie that I legitmately thought would be something an insta-famous person would do. Sincerely was about to post this, until I realized how stupid I looked and how dumb my thought process for the whole thing actually was. This now lives on this blog and the selfies folder on my phone. May we never speak of it again.

Our home teachers invited us to dinner the other night, and I really like my home teachers, so of course I accepted the invitation with grace and hustled on over to their place to stuff my face with the most delicious baked and breaded pork chops with mashed potatoes and caesar salad on the side. During dinner, we started having a conversation about the pressures of social gatherings and social things in general. And with all conversations about social things, I feel like it all goes back to social media. So we talked about how much all of us hate social media. I work in social media, friends, I am social media. Well my job is social media anyway, but not the kind where you share those stupid and really fake articles or those "You won't believe what happened after this girl started singing" videos or even those "please feel sorry for me" or " my hubby/wifey is the sweetest most perfect person in the entire world" posts. We do the business and analytical side, and maybe every once in a while we get to create something totally cool and send it out for the world to see. I mean, we do share cool articles, and create awesome content so I should give myself some credit here.  Nevertheless, social media is more foe than friend to me sometimes.

Now, we all came to the conclusion that social media really is what you make it. I mean, you technically choose to feel bad when you see someone with their completely bleach white photos with perfect potted plants, perfect hair, teeth, husband, food and children that haven't even been born yet, but you just know they are going to be perfect because their instagram theme is on-effing-point. Yeah, you choose to feel bad about that stuff, but let's hashtag REAL talk for a second here.

We. Have. All. Felt. Bad. Or. Inadequate. Looking. At. Someone's. Social Media. Feed. (Periods added for emphasis and attention and annoyance.) We all have. And if you deny it, I promise you from the bottom of my cold, black heart that you are lying. I know you are. Because as much as we love social media and we love keeping in touch with those high school friends that we never talk to ever, we also secretly/not so secretly hate it. And might I add that we all secretly want a million likes and a million comments saying, "goals." So when we don't get them and we see all those insta-famous moms and singles on mountains and wavy-haired girls with those comments and likes, we all feel bad and feel a little bit of bitterness. Even if social media is what you make it, we all still feel bad.

My home teacher's wife is absolutely beautiful. She's totally adorable. She's one of those girls who just looks the best pregnant (she is pregnant) and she has pretty manicured nails and pretty hair and the best personality. And I want to be her friend and tell her funny jokes because she is one of those people that laughs at all jokes even if they are not funny because she wants you to know that you are funny. She really is the nicest human and it seems like she has nothing to feel self-conscious about, but she said to me during that dinner that every time she looks at pinterest or instagram she feels really overwhelmed. She feels like she doesn't and will probably never ever measure up. She gets overwhelmed because she feels like she needs to have the perfect house (with that on-point gallery wall), the perfect closet (with those valentino rockstuds), the perfect husband (with that man bun) and the perfect everything else (you know, kids dressed in outrageously overpriced clothing from companies with names like Finn&Olive, for example). And I am sad to say that I couldn't say that I didn't know how she felt. Oh how I wish we could all say that we didn't feel that way. She and I don't feel that way all the time. I mean, that would get really exhausting, but more than once a week we feel that way.

We feel like we don't measure up and we never will. But I know that's not true. And you should know that too. It's not true.

We can't stop those insta-famous or blog famous people from posting or being who they are. I'm sure a lot of them are great people and I'm sure they have a lot of crap that goes down in their lives. They just have extra validation from the internet. We don't need that validation. We really don't. And they don't need it either. (Don't get me wrong, those people we see all the time all over the internet aren't bad people, I promise I don't think they are bad people. I know a few positively lovely and wonderful internet famous girls that I am glad to call my friends. Please don't think I hate them. I don't.)

So we all came to a conclusion that night. We first decided that we are enough. We are more than our social media accounts.

I told her that she is beautiful and wonderful and enough. She doesn't need to be anything more for the internet. And we exchanged words of encouragement, but then she said that she wished there were people on the internet that were "real." Real is so relative sometimes. Like what defines real? I could say I'm real, but I also sometimes whiten my instagram photos and I sometimes take 50 selfies to get the right one and I even sometimes stage my photos and think long and hard about captions. DON'T TELL ME YOU'VE NEVER DONE THAT!

But I get what she's saying. We need people who are willing to admit that they feel the way I just described above some days more than others. We need people who are size 10's and 12's and above and still try to work out because they want to be healthy not necessarily because they NEED to lose weight. We need girls who are size 00 through 9 to talk about about how no one thinks their bodies are "real or normal" when they are. We need to start a healthy discussion about women building each other up. We need people who are completely open and unapologetic (but not Donald Trump unapologetic, in fact stay away you all trumpians). We need people who sometimes have a bad day and want to write about it. We need all kinds of people. We even need the insta/internet/blog-famous ones. We need each other.

And most importantly we need to remember that despite what is trending, or what is popular. or what boots you SHOULD be wearing from H&M because they are #goals...despite ALL of that...

We are enough.

We are.

So maybe I'll try to be one of those "real" people. That's what this blog was intended for anyway. Let's see how we do.

And even if I fail, I am enough. And so are you.

Observed // I am not

//

I expect a lot out of myself. The majority of pressure I feel in life comes directly from me. I want to be a lot of things and i feel like i need to be other things. I'm not going to discount the fact that the culture I live in expects a lot of things. You have to be the most active. The most outgoing. The most fashionable. The most everything.

Well I'm not a lot of things. In fact, I fall short in a lot of stuff, but as I continue my journey of self-love and self-discovery I've found gold in the things I am not. I have found who I am.

1. I do not have the most clothes in my closet, in fact; I don't even have the latest styles found at good old University Mall. I haven't been shopping for a couple of months. I am not up-to-date with the latest fashions, but here's what I am...

I am learning more and more about my personal style and I'm developing an eye for quality over quantity.

2. I am not the skinniest but here's what I am. I am a girl LEARNING every day to love her body. I am a girl learning to embrace all bodies. I am a girl learning to treat her body with honor and with kindness.

3. I am not the prettiest. Sometimes, I think my chin is really big. Sometimes, I think my face is too round. But here's what I am. I am a person who can smile. I am a person who can feel the warmth of the sun on her face.  I am a girl with a face that is the beautiful genetic makeup of two of the most incredible and important people in her life.

4. I am not the smartest. I do not have a 4.0 anymore. I am not the top of my class and I don't know everything. But here's what I am. I am a person who tries and works hard for what she wants. I am a girl that doesn't throw up every morning anymore because she is so terrified of anything lower than an A. I am a girl who is learning so many valuable things each day. I am a girl who gets to go to college. Have you ever stopped to thinking of just how fortunate you are to go to college?

5. I am not perfect. And I never will be. I am not the perfect wife. I am not the perfect daughter. I am not the perfect member of the church (HAH). I am not the perfect friend and I am not the perfect student. But this is who I am and I am embracing these perfect imperfections, because they make up who I am. They make up my soul. They make up the very core of my being.

I am me, and as cheesy as this sounds...there is no one I would rather be.