by Kerry Guttilla, guest blogger
"You'll understand when you're older."
Has anyone else heard that a zillion times as a kid? or has said it to their own kids? ME! on both counts..
When we are kids I think we believe that there is an age that you turn where suddenly you have all the knowledge to make the "right" choices... (🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️guilty).
Then you "grow up" (I use that term loosely) and realize there's no such thing as an all knowing I have my "shit together" adult or their "ducks in a row" or their "head on straight" or insert any generic Urban dictionary phrase for it. It doesn't exist. At all.
Sure, you can do all the "adult-esque" things----pay the bills, jot your "to-do-list" down in the newest notepad you just bought at the staples back to school sale, have a job, get married, have kids, do all the cliche stuff that you were taught was the "American dream"; the white picket fence, middle class suburban life requirements...but if you are waiting for that moment where you stop making mistakes and completely have your shit together, you're going to be waiting forever.
We are all knowingly or maybe sometimes unknowingly faking it and then posting the movie trailer of our lives that we do "have together" on social media so that everyone else thinks we know what the hell we are doing. We don't. I don't.
That couple who just posted their perfect getaway holding hands and hashtagged #blessed #livingthedream #myheart #myreasonforbreathing #couplegoals #weareperfect #together15yearsAndNeverHadaFight had a BRAWL for 3 hours over parallel parking the car.. (in her defense, the backup camera stopped working). The girl who left her job to travel the world and makes you envy her life with every instagram pic, just changed her number to ward off the debt collectors. The guy who keeps getting promoted and seems to have the career you would die for is so empty inside that he fills himself up with those ambitions and a bottle of Jack.
There are so many times I look at my own social media pictures and think, "That doesn't tell the whole story at all." Pictures from days and nights that started great and ended in mistakes, regrets, arguments and/or tears that no one sees behind an instagram filter--but no one wants the world to see that side of their story.
Everyone has something in their lives that isn't perfect and WE ALL screw up. That doesn't have to mean you're doing life wrong....I'm pretty sure no one is doing it exactly right or partially right or 7 percent right? There is no rule book or guide to life. There is no phrase that could be told to you as a child that can guide you in a step by step American Dream process. Ultimately, It's YOUR call, and YOUR unique dream, and YOURS alone. Do it however you wish. One life. Stop worrying about what people are saying, thinking, doing, posting, gossiping....or if you're right, wrong, succeeding, failing because of a comment left on your last post or a message in your inbox...who cares?
Admitting that you have no idea what is going on or you are not sure what you are talking about, you're figuring it out as you go is the most honest statement that could ever come from an "adult" mouth.
We're all a little messy or a lot messy. We are all Human.
If you don't have your shit together, if you feel like you missed the memo on the perfect life-- well from one mess to another, I support your mess, and I'm rooting for you.
"You'll understand when you're older."
Has anyone else heard that a zillion times as a kid? or has said it to their own kids? ME! on both counts..
When we are kids I think we believe that there is an age that you turn where suddenly you have all the knowledge to make the "right" choices... (🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♀️guilty).
Then you "grow up" (I use that term loosely) and realize there's no such thing as an all knowing I have my "shit together" adult or their "ducks in a row" or their "head on straight" or insert any generic Urban dictionary phrase for it. It doesn't exist. At all.
Sure, you can do all the "adult-esque" things----pay the bills, jot your "to-do-list" down in the newest notepad you just bought at the staples back to school sale, have a job, get married, have kids, do all the cliche stuff that you were taught was the "American dream"; the white picket fence, middle class suburban life requirements...but if you are waiting for that moment where you stop making mistakes and completely have your shit together, you're going to be waiting forever.
We are all knowingly or maybe sometimes unknowingly faking it and then posting the movie trailer of our lives that we do "have together" on social media so that everyone else thinks we know what the hell we are doing. We don't. I don't.
That couple who just posted their perfect getaway holding hands and hashtagged #blessed #livingthedream #myheart #myreasonforbreathing #couplegoals #weareperfect #together15yearsAndNeverHadaFight had a BRAWL for 3 hours over parallel parking the car.. (in her defense, the backup camera stopped working). The girl who left her job to travel the world and makes you envy her life with every instagram pic, just changed her number to ward off the debt collectors. The guy who keeps getting promoted and seems to have the career you would die for is so empty inside that he fills himself up with those ambitions and a bottle of Jack.
There are so many times I look at my own social media pictures and think, "That doesn't tell the whole story at all." Pictures from days and nights that started great and ended in mistakes, regrets, arguments and/or tears that no one sees behind an instagram filter--but no one wants the world to see that side of their story.
Everyone has something in their lives that isn't perfect and WE ALL screw up. That doesn't have to mean you're doing life wrong....I'm pretty sure no one is doing it exactly right or partially right or 7 percent right? There is no rule book or guide to life. There is no phrase that could be told to you as a child that can guide you in a step by step American Dream process. Ultimately, It's YOUR call, and YOUR unique dream, and YOURS alone. Do it however you wish. One life. Stop worrying about what people are saying, thinking, doing, posting, gossiping....or if you're right, wrong, succeeding, failing because of a comment left on your last post or a message in your inbox...who cares?
Admitting that you have no idea what is going on or you are not sure what you are talking about, you're figuring it out as you go is the most honest statement that could ever come from an "adult" mouth.
We're all a little messy or a lot messy. We are all Human.
If you don't have your shit together, if you feel like you missed the memo on the perfect life-- well from one mess to another, I support your mess, and I'm rooting for you.
