Stop Trying So Hard

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am enough just the way I am. I try so hard sometimes to gain other people's approval. It's exhausting. There's nothing wrong with wanting to achieve a little self-improvement from time to time, but after a while you know who you are at your core and there's really just no changing it. That's where I am today.

Take for instance the topic of fashion. Look, I know what looks good. I just can't always afford what looks good! What little allowance I do have for clothes gets spent on necessities (like a new pair of black sandals since my five-year-old Payless sandals bit the dust Sunday!!!) or on thrift/consignment/clearance finds. So, I'm not always always first on the fashion train. Usually I'm on the caboose - right about the time the trendy stuff hits the clearance rack.

Or how about cooking? I mean have you noticed how people are super obsessed with cooking these days? Read this next sentence in the most pompous voice your brain can create: "Oh yes, tonight I am serving seared salmon flavored with home-grown herbs and locally grown organic oven-roasted purple potatoes with flat-leaf spinach and goat cheese." If that's what you're cookin' on a busy Thursday night, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me your secret!!! I LOVE to cook but lately my dinners have been less-than-fantastic. Last night we had ground turkey patties (w/ onion soup mixed in for flavor), rice, frozen steam-in-the-bag green beans. Kind-of boring, but actually more delicious than I anticipated! I just can't deliver an everything-from-scratch FoodTV-worthy dinner every night!

Then there's always, always the issue - for me - of being busy. Everyone's here and there doing this and that and where am I? Sitting on my couch. And I am not doing something cool like knitting my own toe socks or reading one of the classics or sipping fancy tea or DIY-ing ANYTHING. I am propped on my couch in leggings and a tank top watching reruns of Family Ties. I lead an exciting life, I tell ya.

So sometimes I get a little bummed out that I'm not the most fashionable, culinarily gifted, adventurous person that I imagine I could be. But then I look at Maleah and think that she could really care less about all of those things. All she cares about is that I'm her mommy and I love her to pieces and part of the reason I'm so boring is because most of my energy is focused on her!!! And I look at Blake... who is happily sitting beside me on the couch (still wearing shoes, because he is weird and wears shoes until time for bed) watching reruns with me after eating yet another tasty but unexciting dinner.

So who is it exactly that I am trying to impress? I don't really know. Because the two people I care about most in this world are already impressed with me. Not because I can do all these amazing wonderful things. But just because I'm me. And "Me" loves them big time.