reality.

happy new year! i had every intention of writing a post before the end of the last decade but here we are. it’s cool. it’s fine. no big deal. i have had the word ‘reality’ on my mind a lot recently. probably stemming from the fact that i finally set a timer on my instagram account that lets me know the minute i’ve spent an hour on social media. instagram is literally a soul sucking, gut wrenching place sometimes. where thousands of people post the best parts of their existence for everyone to see while you shrink back into your reality and start to wonder what is wrong with you. is it just me? it’s okay if it is. but i will literally be scrolling through and start to doubt myself or my accomplishments or my chapter. but the reality is, that isn’t reality. what we see online, on a story, in a post. it’s not real. our realities are so much more than that. our realities are three am feedings with a new baby and a sick dog. or if you’re me, a sick dog and a sick husband. our realities are bills stacked on the counters, a french fry container on the floor of the car, a messy fridge filled with leftovers that need to be tossed, a sink full of dishes, clean clothes spinning in the dryer for the third time. our realities are messy, are heartbreaks, are chores, are bills, are work, are relationships, are friendships, are laughter, are figuring it all out. reality is so much more than what’s posted online. someone recently said that people only post the best stuff online, when the reality is ugly. and ain’t that the damn truth.

i won’t post my messy house or two hundred dollar electric bill. i will post my starbucks and my freshly made bed and my recent target haul. i am a fraud too, so don’t try to call me out. my feed is all selfies with the best angles and filters and my stories are mostly quotes and places i go and meals that i make. but my reality is much more than that. and so is yours. hell, everyone is going through whatever season they are in. and it’s messy and not always worthy of making the cut on social media. our realities are what make us. our realities are what shape us. without the ugly, we can’t appreciate the beautiful. without the messes, we can’t appreciate the clarity. without the dark, we can’t find light. the reality of it all is that everyone has a reality; a mess underneath the filter; a pile of laundry that was pushed out of the picture; a sick kid or messy kitchen or whatever it may be. your reality isn’t any different; the mess or the darkness or the overwhelming feeling or the christmas decorations that you need to take down or whatever. your reality is reality. it’s real. it’s messy. it’s who we are. it’s our lives. don’t give an ounce of weight or attention to the perfect realities that you see everywhere. those aren’t realities. they are snapshots of what is happening; the only instances of perfection in a messy, crazy reality.

realities are messy. realities are honest. realities aren’t perfect. and that’s okay. because to be real is to be authentic. and to be authentic is to be honest. and who doesn’t want to walk into a new decade with the realization that reality is reality and to be real and honest and vulnerable and open about the shit that’s going down in your life, is in fact what makes you real and relatable! i am sorry not sorry to report that i am done looking at other people’s posts and pages and stories and beating myself up over someone else’s fake reality. it’s twenty twenty and it’s time to recognize that in reality, we are all just surviving and thriving. reality is really ugly sometimes, and that’s okay.

be real. be you. dig through whatever life has handed ya. because that’s real life. that’s the reality of it.

xoxo.