It's Not All Bad

One of my favorite quotes from my all time favorite movie, "The Princess Bride," which rings true regularly is, "Life is pain, highness, anyone who says differently is selling something."

I think we can all agree that life is hard. EVERYONE has completely different challenges, trials and things that make it difficult for them. Everyone handles those difficulties differently. There is physical pain, mental pain, people being a pain. Everyone has something different that makes life a little harder.

I've started to wish that I was brave enough to just lay it all out for the world to see, like "Okay, this is what has actually, truly, legitimately been going on, and it's kind of been really shitty." But that unashamed honesty can be unwelcome and it definitely can give you quite the stigma, or so I have experienced previously. 

With my last two jobs I felt emotionally cornered into making unfair choices. A lot of this came from really difficult personal life circumstances, but in both cases, rather than fight for something I was unsure of and lay all my cards out on the table, I just decided to fold and take the loss. I wish I could have had a heart to heart with each employer and apologized for my home life affecting my work, but I also think I wasn't meant to stay in those positions long term anyway so I kind of let life just figure that one out and did what I could with what I had. 

That is my exact coping mechanism I may have just mastered; when you can control almost nothing and the decisions have been made without you, you have to make the best of what's in front of you. It's all we can do, right?

I think admitting that life is really rough, and that sometimes bad things just happen, is something we don't want to say out loud for fear of coming across as weak or unable to handle things, or maybe that's just me. I've said time and time again, I pride myself on my ability to keep it together and never let them see me break. I may have a good late night cry, or even a lunch time car cry session, but I always pull myself together before I'm back in the public view.

It would be nice if "mental health days" were a real thing and we could call our bosses and say, "I really need to color, take a nap, and watch 4 hours of Friends today, I'll be back in tomorrow." But, for now, we kick up our self care and coping mechanisms and remind ourselves "it's not all bad." It's actually not ALL bad. So much of life is a blessing, but I also don't want to take away from the fact that we all have real, personal, and sometimes unfair turmoil going on.

With that, I wish we could be kinder to each other. About 4 months ago, in what I consider to be an "anxious relapse," I let myself get talked into a tizzy over something really stupid. It felt huge at the time, but it really was dumb. You see, I'm that person that works diligently on being unconditionally understanding. People have real lives and a million things going on and it's not for me to add anything to anyone else's plate, I'm just there to offer for whatever they may need. But I let myself take things too personally as though, the lack of responsiveness was due to "hating me," "ghosting me" or "un-friending me." 

In my experience, when people are going through rough times, the best thing you can do is listen to their answer and asking "how can I help?" Then find some way to do it. Maybe it's a ride somewhere, a gift certificate to Publix, money for pizza or leaving their favorite beer in their fridge when you stop by to check in. Sometimes it's a card that says, "you're doing awesome considering things kinda suck right now" or other times it's a simple text of "I know how busy you are, but I'm here if you have time to chat or to schedule time to hang out."

The thing is, and I think even Taylor Swift sang it once, "That you don't know, what you don't know." So I think we should all work harder to be a little kinder and gentler to people. I post a lot on Instagram pictures of quotes, inspirational words and even just phrases that affect me in some way. Sometimes they say "Hey I'm having a bad day," others signify, "Been there before;" some are funny, some are dark, and rarely I'll even sneak an inside joke in there. 

Everyone has their shit, I like to say. But at the end of the day, life isn't all bad, and we need to remind each other of that when we are struggling. I have found myself getting caught up in technological whirlwinds of never returned text messages, unresponsiveness or miscommunication and taking a big step back from it all has made me feel more receptive to essentially being a better friend and person. 

It's really easy to see all the happy posts and cute pictures and write people off as having "perfect lives," "perfect vacations," and "better circumstances," or "easier lives" than yourself. You never see pictures of the bad times, right? I had to work really hard on not succumbing to those negative twinges and now thinking, "Wow, that looks awesome, good for them!" Because I never got anything from feeling like life was all bad, but I get everything from appreciating more and more that everyone deserves to enjoy a little good.

I've paid close attention to people recently and I am consistently in awe of our capacity to persevere. We are a resilient bunch, especially us wives and mothers, in my humble opinion. It takes a lot for us to really speak enough to be heard and it takes even more to be loud enough for things to resonate but when we do, we make waves. As someone who generally believes women don't think much of her, I've found in motherhood that we are far more similar than we are different, and when we open up and let our guards down a little, we get even stronger as a bunch.

When I've been at my lowest, I've had plenty of people remind me, it's not all bad, and I'll be damned if I don't do the same thing for them. Because the thing that makes it worse, is when we try and push through it alone. The Beatles didn't write all those hits about love and togetherness for us to learn nothing. So if you start your week with this, let us remember to get "By with a little help from my friends," and encourage them when they are feeling immersed in the darkness, that it's not all bad after all.