What's Around You?

I saw this quote on another blog and found myself laughing out loud:

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression, make sure you aren't just surrounded by a**holes"

And then I found myself trying to make something up that I could tell my kids when they asked me why I was laughing.

But isn't there a giant grain of truth to it?  Like maybe I should really look at my life and perhaps all of my friends aren't crazies who drag me down, but where in my life have I surrounded myself with crap that makes me feel like I am losing my mind?

Maybe it's Pinterest in your life.  You know how it is, you have boards and boards of stuff that you were inspired by and have pinned.  And yet you haven't done a single one of them and you wonder who these perfect women are that have the time/money/patience to make gummy worms from scratch or to spend hours felting rocks just because they are pretty?

Maybe it's the design magazines/blogs you read that constantly make you unhappy with the state of your house.  And that life would probably be a lot better if you had $4,000 to buy that designer chair, or maybe even just $400 for the knock-off of it.

Maybe it's facebook and all of the posts that people leave.  The ones where they rant on and on about the glory of God and all things happen for a reason, and you just want to punch them in the face and say that it absolutely wasn't God's will for bad things to happen to you or your family member. Sin isn't from God, people. Or maybe you just want to punch them in the face because they constantly post dumb stuff about the weather and how great their family is, when you've seen how they act together and have a pretty good idea that all is not roses and ponies at home.  I hate that, or did, I no longer have a facebook account, and I don't miss it at all.

It may even be the fact that people go on and on about what a good mother you are with all of those kids and what you really want to say is that you make mistakes and yell at your kids and threaten that if you have to get after them in Target they will all regret it. And that you use tv to get small moments of sanity.

Why can't we just be honest with ourselves and others?

I don't have time to hand-dye cool looking linens for my kids or make my house exactly how I want it because I am too busy raising 5 kids, which involves things like wiping butts and boogers off the wall and keeping a whole bunch of kids from physically attacking the others at times.  I would love to do all of the things that I have pinned  but when my kids go to bed I am just so darned tired that all I want to do is sleep.

I have come a long way with not putting up a front about how my life really is.  It used to be that when I was asked how things were going I would say good.  When a lot of the time that was a big fat lie.  I don't answer good anymore if it's not true.  I also don't ramble on and on about what currently sucks in my life, but I give a short, honest answer.

Life is too short to be fake.  Take me or leave me the way that I am.

It seems with all the time spent on the internet we are used to seeing people at their best and think that is how they always are.  Nobody wants to post the crap in their life.  So instead, everyone feels that they just don't add up to all the rest of the people that they have only blog stalked on the internet and never met in real life.  We end up feeling like less of a person because our blog "friends" have their lives together and our underwear has holes in them.  I think that us women need to give ourselves a break.

So that's what I am encouraging you to do- a hopefully small encouragement for the day- really, I swear it is!  Take a peek at all the stuff/people in your life and do some re-evaluation occasionally.  I think it will do us all wonders.

Um, I am going to go with a big yes on this one!