Yesterday I went shopping.

I’m sure 99% of you are probably thinking “so what?” But 1% of you gets it. You get that it’s a big freakin’ deal for me to get outside of our house. And an even bigger deal to go into a store with someone other than my husband.

It’s the little things.

Back to the point.

Do you know what I did when I went shopping with my Mom? I shopped. I talked. I browsed. I did everything you’d normally do when you shop. But all that doesn’t matter. What does matter is what I didn’t do while I shopped.

I didn’t tweet. I didn’t take photos. I didn’t text. I didn’t (okay, I did a little) check my emails.

I wasn’t feeling mopey about my last two days that have royally sucked. I wasn’t wondering why my house wasn’t as pretty or as clean as someone else’s. I wasn’t comparing my clothes to those that are showcased by fashion bloggers. I wasn’t trying to find photographic moments of my life to post on my blog. I wasn’t trying to find some deeper meaning or connection with what I was doing to share here (although I am anyway so how’s that for being a rebel?)

Essentially I was there. In the moment. Enjoying it. Living it. Breathing it in.
Not wishing I was in someone else’s shoes, clothes, house, city, or career.

Do you ever think about life before you blogged?

I do. A lot.

And I think about the fact that I wasn’t nearly as hard to please back then because it wasn’t so damn easy to transport my mind into someone else’s life just long enough to resent bits and pieces of my own life. I didn’t know what hundreds of other people wore on a daily basis, or how they wanted their house to appear, or how beautiful some cities across this country are, or how successful so many people were, or how delicious their food can look, or how gorgeous their photography was.

Maybe I was sheltered, but what I didn’t know truly couldn’t hurt me.

Truth be told, I miss those days. I miss the little things. How Sunday mornings were meant for sleeping in, not catching up on blog reading. How life wasn’t lived like everything had to be documented, or inspirational, or over the top. How moments were enjoyed without a camera or the blinking cursor on how to write about it. How food didn’t have to look presentable – it just needed to taste good.

The list is endless.

And it’s no one’s fault but my own for getting caught up in a game I was destined to lose.

I want this blog to be about the life I live, the moments I get lost in, and the simple pleasures that make my life mine. What I don’t want is for this blog to be made up of moments only half enjoyed because I wasn’t fully there and was instead processing how it could be shared.

Here’s to more nights in the backyard during the warm nights doing nothing of importance. Here’s to trips to the mall with my Mom where we just catch up on life. Here’s to weekend days being spent in bed or watching movies. Here’s to food that is made to be eaten – not to be photographed. Here’s to saying yes to life and getting caught up in the moment with no regrets.

And here’s to my challenge to myself, and to you should you choose to take it. Take time out today, tomorrow, and every day after that and just do something you did before you began blogging. Don’t do it to blog about it – do it just because you want to. And if you do blog about it, great. If you don’t, that’s great too. But do it. Take five, ten, twenty, or thirty minutes – maybe even an hour or more if you can! – to just go back to the way things were for a bit. And appreciate the life you have, the person you are, and the wonderful things you do without having to document it, without having to justify it, and without having to compare it to someone else’s story.

Source: facebook.com via Ashley on Pinterest

Years ago, I blamed everyone for my misfortunes. My parents were at fault when I was younger. My boyfriends were at fault when I grew older. I always had someone to point the finger at to ensure that it was never me to blame.

By doing this, I always found a way to throw myself the most lavish pity parties. They lasted for days, if not weeks. I felt sorry for myself and the life I was thrown into. I wallowed. And anger followed any attempt to point out that my life wasn’t that bad.

I’d like to say I just got smarter, grew up and realized I was being my own worst enemy, but that’s not the full truth. I did get smarter. And I did grow up. And I did realize I was being my own worst enemy. But it took being cheated on for any of that to happen.

Days after the realization of what occurred hit me, I wallowed more than ever. It was the most extravagant, and the most depressing, pity party I had to date. And maybe some of it was acceptable. Maybe some of the tears shed were worth it and maybe some of the agonizing anxiety-filled nights were my own way of grieving.

But most of it was just me, looking to play the victim.

And while this post isn’t about what happened years ago, that moment defined who I am today. Because after a few weeks of spending far too much time at my parents house and closing myself off to the world that surrounded me, I broke.

A million little pieces type of break. I saw myself, the miserable shadow of a scorned woman who felt betrayed and alone, for what I was. I saw who I had become and the pieces of me that were every which way but right. And instead of wallowing more, shaming myself for what I was and who I had become, I held my head high.

I accepted my mistakes. My downfalls. My tormented patterns. I accepted my flaws and misfortunes. I accepted those around me for what they were and moved on from what I felt they should be. I accepted my sadness, my anger, and my uncertainty. I accepted the fate that had fallen on me through the actions of my ex as a blessing, no longer a curse.

And in those moments, I lost my need to pity myself. And with it, my want to pity anyone else. While my intention isn’t to brag, this has been one of the most rewarding and most challenging experiences I have ever gone through. It allowed me to respect myself for who I was – hell, who I am today – with no strings attached.

And while I feel so successful, and so proud from that moment, it’s left a constant struggle in my life. An inability to open up. An inability to share. Especially here. Not because I worry about what you may think or the nasty things people may say. Not because I need acceptance from my peers or because I want to be liked by everyone.

Merely because the idea of someone feeling sorry for me in any form is a battle that leaves me conflicted every time I write, or even speak. Every word I speak that isn’t positive and encouraging leaves me with a lingering idea that someone may pity me, or my life, or the situation I’m in – and I want nothing to do with it. I cringe at people seeing what I have to say or how I feel and feeling a twinge of sympathy for me. Perhaps apathy suits me better – I don’t know.

But I struggle with being real here sometimes because I want you to know that I like when life gets hard because it helps me appreciate the good/easy times. I’m okay that life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. And that I wasn’t dealt a perfect hand when I was born. I know in my heart that I’m going to be alright in the end and that’s enough to remind me each and every day that any second spent pitying myself is one second wasted. And for me, that’s not okay.

Have you crashed your pity parties? How do you keep pity from affecting how you live every day?

After spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to find the perfect words for how I was feeling today, or even specifically what to write about, I decided it was enough. I was wasting time and using up my creative thinking on pointless things instead of just getting those thoughts out of my head. So instead, I figured I would free write and hit publish once I found a title that encompassed the nonsense that I wrote about, no looking back.

This past week, or more so week and a half, have been trying on me. Trying on my health, my business, my blog, my marriage, my life – everything. If something could go wrong, it did. If something could get under my skin, it did. If something could make me question my current life and future dreams, it did. It all came crashing down around me and left me feeling like I had made a monumental mistake that was going to leave me in a state of disarray for days, weeks, maybe even months. And then yesterday morning, it was all over.

The making, the packaging, the labeling, the shipping, the mistakes, the illness – all of it came to a halt when the packages were dropped off and everything was now out of my hands. Yet the effects still lingered. I laid in bed, waiting to shake the feeling of uncertainty and it never departed. I got up, showered, got ready and it still hung around. I worked and then went to a cooking class with Nathan and it was still there, grazing the depths of my memories. And today it’s still there, making me question my motivates, my ideas, my goals, my hopes, my dreams.

Being this busy always takes a toll on me.

A not-so-subtle reminder that I’m not living in the moment, enjoying my time and being as free as I hope to be. It drains me of my creativity, my love, my passion. Leaves me grasping for things that seem just beyond my reach in my business and in my life. I’m irritable and hard to please, wishing I could just escape from the chaos for mere seconds and enjoy the silence.

And while life has been far from what I expected this year, I’m humbled. Grateful, anxious (in a good way), and pleased. The insanity has allowed me to realize my priorities, if only by preventing me from doing them and making me want them more. I ache for time to exercise. I dream about date nights with Nathan and time spent with my family. I count down the days until the weekend where life slows – if even a little bit – and I get to cook and bake delicious food that gets me through a tough day. I get lost in the thoughts of my time revolving around me, and my husband, and our family – and how I already know what my priorities are. They’re just waiting. Waiting for me to make enough time for them.

By showing me the things I yearn for, it’s made me realize how childish I’ve been. I’ve become lost in a my own world, spending far too much time on things that don’t matter. Reading blogs that end up making me feel like my life isn’t whole or complete because my photos aren’t as good as theirs, or my travels aren’t as exciting as theirs, or my news isn’t nearly as interesting as theirs. Wasting hours on social media, knowing that a real relationship (for me) with someone else isn’t solely built through this format yet treating it like it can be done. Interacting with people who have little interest in me, or what I do, or what I’m passionate about and are only in it for themselves. Watching TV as a way to escape, using it to cope with my frustration.

I’d say I’m disappointed, but I don’t think I am. All of these things that I’ve done (or even am doing) give me a starting point. A place that says it doesn’t get much worse than this, you know. Something that inspires me to move and act upon the time I’ve been wasting instead of losing myself even further in a life that’s not well spent. They show me how low I’ve gone and remind me that it’s only positive from here on out.

And the most amazing thing is that life can be so simple if we let it. The things I hate doing are so easy to stop and the things I love doing are so easy to start. If we just accept who we are, what we do, and why we do the things we do – it’s easy. It’s fun, simple, and stress-free. Life becomes what we are and what we make out of it instead of what everyone else is and what they make out of it. The comparison ends, the need for more disappears and the gratitude for what we have sweeps in. Our passions shine and our strengths/skills come natural to us, reminding us that they’ve been there all of our life – they just weren’t acknowledged.

While this feels like a belated resolution, it’s not. It’s a realization that I’ve screwed up and that by accepting it, I’m finally able to fix it. Finally able to embrace a life that was cut-out for me and only me.

Finally able to seek solace instead of wishing for a day that it would find me.

Over the weekend, I ended up with a rather large scratch over my eyelid and cheekbone from our pup. It’s not the first – and definitely not the last time – she’s left a mark on me from her overly excited playing, but it was the first one on my face. And after the pain and tears subsided, my initial thought was

what will people think when I go out in public?

And that simple idea struck a chord within me, making me question if I was truly living the right life if that thought laid on my shoulders. Did it matter what they thought? Did it matter if, or when, I were to be judged? Did it matter if they assumed something completely false and drew conclusions about me based off of this simple temporary mark?

The easy answer is no, but my actions reminded me I felt differently. I internally battled the task of covering it with make-up, silently running through the contents of my make-up holder, wondering if I had enough creams to cover it up when we ran our errands later in the day. I thought about having Nathan run all of our errands while I sat, and most likely pouted, at home.

Ridiculous things ran through my head when I should have been grateful I was wearing glasses or that I was able to close my eye in time to shield it. Vanity encompassed me. I felt shallow and saddened by my need for a stranger’s approval. I was disappointed in myself.

In the end, mascara was the only thing I put on that day in a mere effort to push myself to stand up for what I should believe in. And by the time we came home, I realized I felt more at ease in my own skin than I ever had. I had accepted myself and that was all that I needed to shed my need for acceptance from those I don’t even know.

Despite the fact that it’s still there and still healing, leaving a dull ache where it lays – I’m glad it happened. I’m sure it didn’t cure me of my vain thinking, but it did remind me to seek out acceptance within myself – not within others.

When I start blogging – really blogging, with some sort of intention and without the intensity of my high school rebellion – I did it for two reasons. Two reasons that centered around the core of my very being. A search for friendship and a need to share. Like-minded people were who I sought out and ached to be surrounded by. I had a need and this?This was my fulfillment.

I tugged at my soul and pleaded for the serenity to share my story, yearning for the ability to break down my walls long enough to write it down. My constant tug of war left bits and pieces of my life imprinted on my blog for all eyes to see, but no one has won the battle yet. I give and then take, never equally. Never constantly. Always the uphill battle that knocked me on my ass just when I thought I was getting ahead.

I never saw how blogging changed me. I never saw the endless ideas it presented with each and every blog post. It corrupted my thinking. It broadened my horizons. It altered my senses and challenged my beliefs. It did this without a thought, without permission and without even an ounce of understanding.

Everywhere I turn, there’s someone new I could meet. Somewhere else I wish I could be. Someone else’s life I wish I could live – even just for mere fleeting moments to experience their world. There’s new careers I never even knew existed, new places I never thought I’d see even in photographs, new people that live lives I only daydreamed about. Endless moments, endless culture, endless satisfaction.

It opened up a world of ideas and granted me access to all of the knowledge in the world. But what for? What is this journey? Is it the road to self-fulfillment?My gut tells me otherwise.

It’s a mere stepping stone. A single piece of an endless puzzle. A way to figure out how the rest of the puzzle pieces fit together. Because when  I was younger, I never dreamed of being a blogger. I had no idea that was even a role I could fit in – because I didn’t even know it existed. Instead I would dream of being a writer. An artist. A student. A believer. I got lost in daydreams of creativity and innovative sorrow, seeking out solitude to express my inner visions.

In the end . . . it led me here, to a haphazard community that can be equally as positive as it is negative at times - a place that can fuel that need for inspiration on a daily, even hourly, basis where I’m surrounded by people who ache to leave a similar mark on the world we all live in. And yet also a place that has yet to completely fulfill me.

And while I have no intention of leaving this community or this blog behind, I also have no intentions of this blog being what I’m meant to become. My stories and the snippets of my life should be reflected in my writing here while I pave the way for my dreams to be my reality. My writing should hold true to those core beliefs instead of transforming them to adjust to the current destination I’m at in my journey. I haven’t found my buried treasure yet, but that doesn’t mean I should - or that I will - give up my search and settle for the remnants of a battered life that’s two dreams short of fulfillment.