I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s the pregnancy hormones that have me so \u201coff\u201d lately\u2026but I\u2019m just so damn sensitive these days. It doesn\u2019t take much to send me on a downward spiral of frustration, sadly, and Facebook can often be the culprit to my turn in mood. It seems like there are a million and one articles out there about how Facebook\/Instagram\/Twitter can make you feel as though you are really lacking experiences\/things\/people in your life, because all you see are the \u201cgood\u201d moments (i.e. the glowing family pic but not the fight you all had in the car on the way to take it) and not the messy ones. I admit, there are times where I read friend\u2019s status updates about their kids and how unbelievably well-behaved they are all the time and I think it\u2019s got to be a big lie, right? Or that you\u2019re a Mom and you really love being with your kids 24\/7 and never, ever need a break to be around other adults and talk about adult things. Is it just me? I don\u2019t know what the answer is to this question of contentment. I love Facebook for so many reasons, one being keeping up with my dear friends in other parts of the country. One of my favorite, favorite things is seeing pictures of all those moments that I can\u2019t be there for \u2013 the first day of Kindy, Daddy\/Daughter dances, the births of new babies and even date nights where my girlfriends and their hubbies enjoy a little time away \u2013 it\u2019s awesome knowing you can still \u201cbe a part\u201d of those memories even if you live in another state. But what I don\u2019t love about myself, and this is the icky part \u2013 is how jealous I feel when I see vacation shots and girl\u2019s getaways and things like that \u2013 the experiences that aren\u2019t a priority for us these days because we\u2019re having a baby and I\u2019m pregnant \u2013 and (gasp!) can\u2019t partake in a poolside\/patio margarita. Boo. I\u2019m not someone who can\u2019t be happy for others, really, I\u2019m not! I just have a deep-rooted issue with contentment \u2013 that stems from an early childhood of moving a lot and never feeling settled. Sometimes I can\u2019t even trust in the friendships I\u2019ve made here in the last 3 years. I truly and honestly struggle with and deeply fear being left out of things. I\u2019ve learned how to (somewhat) manage it over the years \u2013 but when I\u2019m feeling down and my (emotional life) immune system is suppressed, it always comes back \u2013 and maybe that\u2019s because the Devil knows what\u2019s in the details. He knows where to cut me, and I never fail to bleed when he does. I told Vann yesterday that I think some of this has to do with weaning off my meds (I like to say \u201chappy pills\u201d although I don\u2019t think he appreciates that term) right around the time I got pregnant. The lows just seem a little lower than they normally would be, and accepting that it\u2019s more than just a bad day helps me cope a little better. The truth is that I\u2019m sure we all struggle a little bit with the illusion of social media. Everyone always looks like they\u2019re having a better time than you \u2013 am I right? There\u2019s always someone who: dresses better than you do has more money than you do lives in a prettier house than you do drives a nicer car than you do eats more organically than you do has better biceps than you do is skinnier than you are has better behaved kids than you do reads their bible more than you do has dinner on the table every night at 6 is a supermom and does it effortlessly never wants time away from her family keeps a cleaner house than you do has all matching appliances can eat what they want and not gain a pound has full-time help and never ever complains. Have you thought any of these things this week? Maybe if we focused on the good things in our lives and all the blessings we\u2019ve been given we\u2019ll be less concerned that this isn\u2019t our final stop we can\u2019t take any of it with us and as you get to your mid-30\u2019s and just want to stop trying so damn hard you realize the people truly worth being with will want to \u201cdo life\u201d with you as much as you want to \u201cdo life\u201d with them. And if you can just accept your imperfections and relish in the messiness of life you\u2019ll get so much more out of it than you ever thought. This Mother\u2019s Day, I\u2019m hoping to gift myself with a great big HEAPING dose of grace. To take a deep breath and stop all the struggling. Happy Mother\u2019s Day, friends. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s the pregnancy hormones that have me so \u201coff\u201d lately\u2026but I\u2019m just so damn sensitive these days. It doesn\u2019t take much to send me on a downward spiral of frustration, sadly, and Facebook can often be the culprit to my turn in mood. It seems like there are a million and one articles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1127,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/1127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}