Shades of Green

I’m not exactly sure when it happens, but there comes a point in your life when you look around and realize that everyone is merely human, including yourself.  Your teachers, the guy making your sub the way you like it, Jenifer Lawrence, the dishwasher, your parents, the President, the woman dressed like a man who has taken residence on the couch in your front yard, your exes, and the girl in front of you who is preventing you from making any progress in life because she has decided to turn left onto a major 4 lane road during rush hour -they are all human beings who break down to the same basic needs.

No one is perfect. No one. Mary Poppins was only practically perfect and she was fictitious.  So for anyone you hold on a pedestal or anyone you think has it made-stop it and they don’t. Except maybe Kate Middleton.

And on that note, celebrities are simply people. The page in PEOPLE magazine that says ‘They’re Just like Us!’ is infuriating. Of course they are just like us.  They just happen to be under a human microscope which sadly finds them buying toilet paper to be an oddity. They don’t fart either.  Ever.

As a society, if we could invest the interest we put into Hollywood and who’s hooking up with who and who’s wearing what better into ourselves and the people who surround us on a daily basis, the world would be a better, healthier, and more productive place.

Think about it. Do it. Stop buying those ridiculous magazines that these shmucks actually get paid to put together!  Did Princess Diana teach us nothing?? Do something constructive instead of reading about other people’s lives who don’t effect yours.

In general, stop living vicariously through other people and start focusing on your reality. Social media is thriving because of our obsession with everyone else. Somebody posts something and you become more invested than you intended. You notice their relationship status has changed and before you know it, you’re Nancy Drew-ing your life away on album #4 trying to pin point when exactly their relationship ended as if it matters in the slightest.  And while I am guilty of it as well, I am consciously getting better. I am trying to be more intentional with my time-with what I do and what I don’t do. Don’t let your distraction with other people’s lives distract you from yours. You hear that people pleasers, FOMO-ers, and gossip girls!?!?

It has been my finding that I have a hard time being content with where I am. It is very rare that i can look back and honestly say I was sublimely happy…which is sad because I’ve had a pretty great life.  Maybe in college because I was too drunk for critical thinking and living in a Utopian bubble of awesome in the middle of a cornfield where my body hadn’t begun to defy gravity just yet.  I’m all about high expectations but there’s a difference between a healthy dose of determination and having goals and never quite feeling accomplished or impressed with anything at all. Why do we find it so hard to be happy?

My best friend and I couldn’t lead more opposite lives. She is a teacher who married her high school sweetheart, lives in a big house in a nice neighborhood, and has 2 beautiful kids. Meanwhile I left town after high school, live in a 500 sq ft studio apartment, pay the bills waiting tables, and the thought of having kids sends every muscle in my body, particularly the ones down there, into a HOW IS TRUMP BEING PRESIDENT AN ACTUAL POSSIBILITY?! panic. There are days when I look at her life and think to myself- I’ve done it all wrong.

I think to myself I can’t have a party let alone a cocktail hour in my apartment because let’s not forget my bedroom is my living room. I am still renting at a price higher than most of my friends’ mortgages. I moved across the country far away my family and those I love the most. I miss out on a lot. I don’t have children yet, and when I finally get to that point in my life I’m going to be the old mom who can’t keep up socially or physically with all the younger sexier moms running around in their spandex after Orange Theory or whatever craze is relevant at the time. And to be quite honest it’s a downward spiral that’s been coated with coconut oil. And I think, then would I be happy?

Maybe but I doubt it. I certainly wouldn’t risk it to give up the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met along the way. But you observe other people and where their choices have taken them and it’s hard not to let your mind go there. You find yourself with a case of the WHAT IFs.  And what’s crazy is there are days when I’m jealous of her life but there are also days when she’s jealous of mine.

No one has it all.  Everyone is going through shit.  Everyone. Your problems are someone else’s daydream and your nightmares are someone else’s reality and vice versa.

The grass may be greener on the other side, but it’s just as hard to mow…or it’s fake.  That’s good advice as Jimmy Dugan would say.