Today, I’m Letting Go

 

This past weekend, I sat and I worked – which really isn’t typical of me during the 3 non-Army Reserve weekends that my husband is home. Our norm is to plan one active day out of the house and one lounge day/family movie day in the house. So on the very first weekend of 2016, my butt sat behind the computer so that I could finish up a looming project for my other company INTRO NYC (If you are a blogger, hop over and join now!). I just couldn’t start the first Monday of the new year without getting that done.

I kept glancing over and looking at my phone. Then, picking up my phone and scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through every social network – it was almost a treat that I awarded myself with each time I finished a page of work. And I watched what everyone else was doing. And because I was sitting on my butt working and my boys’ butts were sitting in front of the TV in the other room, it made me feel pretty shitty about myself.

I know that I outlined that I want to be more productive in 2016, which includes less Facebook time, but I’m starting to feel like the issue is bigger than Facebook. I discussed in a recent post the need to bridge the gap between reality and the Internet, how there is always more than what meets the eye. I do still believe that, but I haven’t yet stopped to really think about the way the photos affect me at times.

We’re a busy family, we really are, and I’m truly thankful for the fun moments we get to have both personally and through events I get invited to (like the cute one of B playing chef below), but I’m often left feeling like I should be doing more.

Quite frankly, I hate feeling this way. I hate that I get so affected by photos sometimes that I don’t feel like my little family is doing enough, when in reality – we are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing. We are living our life. We are spending time together. We are traveling when we can. We are laughing together.

Yes, there are in between moments of down time, and I need to be more thankful for those moments, because they won’t always be there. So, I’m letting go. I’m letting go of the comparing, the feeling that my life isn’t photogenic enough, that we don’t do enough adventurous things or eat at the most dazzling restaurants. This is our life, our moments, and they are precious and just as important as some of the more beautiful pictures I’m not putting out there.

So ya know what? Next weekend IS an Army Reserve Drill weekend for Chris, and I WILL be working (as well as spending some quality time with B – but it just might be playing one of his new games indoors, and I’m okay with that). But I won’t be feeling bad. In fact, I challenge you to let go with me, of whatever it is that has been weighing on you. Life is too short to focus on what we’re not doing.

Fashionably Yours,

Allison