Recently I've been avoiding Facebook. Not because I'm trying to 'better myself' or because of a clichéd Lent promise to limit screen time (that I will inevitably fail at anyway). I'm avoiding that sinking feeling in my tummy that I get when I tap that big blue 'F' and it presents me with a "1 year ago today" post...
One year ago today I was exploring a local market in Luang Prabang, Laos. I was eating amazing Lao foods, talking to the friendly Lao people and drinking a Lao Beer whilst the sun set over the Mekong. Right now I am sitting in an Owl Onesie, watching a grey, English-Rain type of Saturday afternoon pass by, having enjoyed a nutritious Gregg's pizza slice for lunch.
(CLICK HERE to read more about where we were 'One year ago today!')
It's been a weird chapter of my life since returning from travelling around the world. I am an optimist, probably because the attitude of "It'll be alright in the end" has worked well for me thus far in my life, and I am also a planner (CLICK HERE to read my "Best laid plans" post if you don't believe me!). The trouble is that these two personality traits combined, leads to frequent disappointment that the amazing, exciting and perfectly timed plans of my human brain have not come into fruition. Hannan's brain decides on Plan 'A', gets excited about Plan 'A' and starts preparing for Plan 'A' until Life sidles in from the wings, taps me on the shoulder and pipes up with a "Heyyy...yeah....nope, that 'aint how it goes down my friend! Try Plan 'B' and see how that works for ya!"
In Fiji, The Boy and I were sat on a beach talking about our grand plans for our return to the UK. They were easy enough to understand and, thinking optimistically, fairly easy to achieve...right? They involved finding permanent jobs which would lead to finding our own home we can move into which would lead to being able to find the perfect Puppy Pal to snuggle with on wintery English afternoons. Completed by Christmas (at which point we could construct another perfect plan for life and so on and so forth). The plan sounded perfect and foolproof.
5 months later, March 2016 and we are pretty much in the same position as that first day back in England. Winter arrived in her frosty glory and the gardens went to sleep, meaning less gardening work for The Boy. After 5 months of me applying for jobs and hearing nothing back, moral is low... No job means no moving into our own home, and no moving into our own home sadly means...no Puppy Pal.
Life has been slow and frustrating for a lot of the time since we returned home and we've found ourselves saying things like "Was travelling really worth it? Did we really need to spend such a lot of our savings, use up 9 months of our life, uproot our stable jobs and completely wipe the slate clean? If we'd not gone we would be doing this or that by now, maybe we could have bought a house, found our Dog and moved forward in our careers..." And on days like today I take my 'one year ago today' Hannan and I pop her right beside my 'actual-today-sitting-in-a-onesie' Hannan and I feel the burden of how different those two lives are.
And I am aware of how gloomy and doomy I sound. But the thing is, since January 2015, 9 blogs ago, I've mostly posted gorgeous photos of stunning beaches, tales of travelling life in all its glory and blogs that possibly (probably) came across as though we were living the perfect life. And now I realize that it isn't fair to present my experiences in such a rose-tinted manner. It took a post from a friend of mine on Facebook to realize how easy it is to filter our social media profiles to portray ourselves as happy, whole and perfect, when actually, the truth is that I had days in every country I visited when I did nothing but mooch around our room, moan about missing home and cry. But that wouldn't make it to Instagram. It isn't 'Facebook-Perfect' and it won't give the impression that I have the perfect life.
I am constantly putting myself under pressure to live life like 'this person' or 'that person' based on what I see on their Facebook page. I see posts of people travelling, getting their puppy, decorating their first house, having babies, perfect hair and make-up, romantic stories of husbands and wives doing loving deeds and see my friends wearing gorgeous clothes and I place myself side-by-side to them and I feel sad. My hair and make-up are far from perfect, I am wearing an actual OWL ONESIE and I just snapped at MY husband for forgetting to shut the door...
It's easy to share the beautiful moments in our lives (and important to do so as it's these moments that remind us of how lucky we are to have friends, family and happy experiences) whilst airbrushing out the imperfections, the mistakes, the stories that prove how human we are. But it's time to be honest.
My friend Abi summed it up on Facebook like this:
So know this: True friends will celebrate our perfect moments and support us through our failing moments and the world will be a more secure, confident and positive place for us being honest about the lives we lead as perfect and flawed as they are. If comparison is the thief of joy I need to start being secure that I AM good enough and my life (even through the mundane, feels-like-we-won't-ever-move-forward moments) is exciting and worth living! 'Aint nothing thieving MY joy...
And I think I might turn off the 'One year ago' function on Facebook...
One year ago today I was exploring a local market in Luang Prabang, Laos. I was eating amazing Lao foods, talking to the friendly Lao people and drinking a Lao Beer whilst the sun set over the Mekong. Right now I am sitting in an Owl Onesie, watching a grey, English-Rain type of Saturday afternoon pass by, having enjoyed a nutritious Gregg's pizza slice for lunch.
(CLICK HERE to read more about where we were 'One year ago today!')
It's been a weird chapter of my life since returning from travelling around the world. I am an optimist, probably because the attitude of "It'll be alright in the end" has worked well for me thus far in my life, and I am also a planner (CLICK HERE to read my "Best laid plans" post if you don't believe me!). The trouble is that these two personality traits combined, leads to frequent disappointment that the amazing, exciting and perfectly timed plans of my human brain have not come into fruition. Hannan's brain decides on Plan 'A', gets excited about Plan 'A' and starts preparing for Plan 'A' until Life sidles in from the wings, taps me on the shoulder and pipes up with a "Heyyy...yeah....nope, that 'aint how it goes down my friend! Try Plan 'B' and see how that works for ya!"
In Fiji, The Boy and I were sat on a beach talking about our grand plans for our return to the UK. They were easy enough to understand and, thinking optimistically, fairly easy to achieve...right? They involved finding permanent jobs which would lead to finding our own home we can move into which would lead to being able to find the perfect Puppy Pal to snuggle with on wintery English afternoons. Completed by Christmas (at which point we could construct another perfect plan for life and so on and so forth). The plan sounded perfect and foolproof.
5 months later, March 2016 and we are pretty much in the same position as that first day back in England. Winter arrived in her frosty glory and the gardens went to sleep, meaning less gardening work for The Boy. After 5 months of me applying for jobs and hearing nothing back, moral is low... No job means no moving into our own home, and no moving into our own home sadly means...no Puppy Pal.
Life has been slow and frustrating for a lot of the time since we returned home and we've found ourselves saying things like "Was travelling really worth it? Did we really need to spend such a lot of our savings, use up 9 months of our life, uproot our stable jobs and completely wipe the slate clean? If we'd not gone we would be doing this or that by now, maybe we could have bought a house, found our Dog and moved forward in our careers..." And on days like today I take my 'one year ago today' Hannan and I pop her right beside my 'actual-today-sitting-in-a-onesie' Hannan and I feel the burden of how different those two lives are.
And I am aware of how gloomy and doomy I sound. But the thing is, since January 2015, 9 blogs ago, I've mostly posted gorgeous photos of stunning beaches, tales of travelling life in all its glory and blogs that possibly (probably) came across as though we were living the perfect life. And now I realize that it isn't fair to present my experiences in such a rose-tinted manner. It took a post from a friend of mine on Facebook to realize how easy it is to filter our social media profiles to portray ourselves as happy, whole and perfect, when actually, the truth is that I had days in every country I visited when I did nothing but mooch around our room, moan about missing home and cry. But that wouldn't make it to Instagram. It isn't 'Facebook-Perfect' and it won't give the impression that I have the perfect life.
I am constantly putting myself under pressure to live life like 'this person' or 'that person' based on what I see on their Facebook page. I see posts of people travelling, getting their puppy, decorating their first house, having babies, perfect hair and make-up, romantic stories of husbands and wives doing loving deeds and see my friends wearing gorgeous clothes and I place myself side-by-side to them and I feel sad. My hair and make-up are far from perfect, I am wearing an actual OWL ONESIE and I just snapped at MY husband for forgetting to shut the door...
It's easy to share the beautiful moments in our lives (and important to do so as it's these moments that remind us of how lucky we are to have friends, family and happy experiences) whilst airbrushing out the imperfections, the mistakes, the stories that prove how human we are. But it's time to be honest.
My friend Abi summed it up on Facebook like this:
"I once read that "comparison is the thief of joy" and it's so true! Guess what......no one has it together! Except Mary Poppins"
as she described a stressful, 'not-perfect-in-any-way' sort of scenario whilst taking her baby girl swimming. When I read this, the sense of relief that other people feel they sometimes fall short was overwhelming and I needed to hear it more than even I knew. Having obsessed over several people's Facebooks that very day, lining myself up beside them to see if my life was remotely interesting, it was a real wake-up call. I use Facebook every day and there's no shame in that. As I said, if I wanted to give it up I would have done so at the start of Lent! But I refuse to let it bring me down into a spiral of self-doubt and shame.So know this: True friends will celebrate our perfect moments and support us through our failing moments and the world will be a more secure, confident and positive place for us being honest about the lives we lead as perfect and flawed as they are. If comparison is the thief of joy I need to start being secure that I AM good enough and my life (even through the mundane, feels-like-we-won't-ever-move-forward moments) is exciting and worth living! 'Aint nothing thieving MY joy...
And I think I might turn off the 'One year ago' function on Facebook...
