I freak out about a lot of things. A lot of
normal-to-freak-out-about things, like earthquakes and my favorite shows being
on the verge of cancellation and the impending zombie apocalypse, yes, but also
a lot of ridiculous things.
Like when my curtains move and I’m convinced it’s a ghost,
and not, you know, the wind.
Or like when I see a shadow move out of the corner of my eye
and I’m convinced it’s a ghost and not, you know, my own shadow.
Basically, I have a lot of ghost issues.
But lately I’ve been freaking out over two main things:
1.
I constantly feel like I don’t have enough time
to do things, as in, there are so many
amazing recipes out there and I want to cook them all NOW or there are so many wonderful restaurants in
the area and I don’t have enough days in my life to eat at them all or there are so many places I want to travel,
things I want to see, stuff I want to learn, etc. and there’s just not enough
time!
2.
The stuff I don’t
have, but want or think I need. Like, I keep forgetting that I’m only 25
and my apartment should look like a 25-year-old’s apartment, and not something
out of a Pottery Barn catalogue, so I freak out about how I don’t have the
bedroom/living room/patio/kitchen of my dreams. Or like this morning, when I
was getting dressed and realized that I didn’t have shoes to match my outfit. I
have 30 pairs of shoes in my closet, but I started thinking I need a few more.
Now when I say I freak out, I mean I (mostly internally) freak out. I actually have anxiety over
these things. My chest gets tight sometimes when I’m flipping through a
cookbook or thinking about how my comforter doesn’t go with the rest of my bedroom
décor.
It’s ridiculous, I know. It’s petty and silly and I just
need to relax, but that’s not always
easy to do. Especially for someone who is anxiety-prone like me.
But I think I’ve discovered the root of the problem (or at
least part of the problem).
Pinterest.
Seriously. As much as the pictures and links and advice
often inspire me, they also equally frustrate me and make me feel inadequate. I
pin recipes and home décor ideas and craft projects and eventually I start to
feel like there’s no way I can have all of that and my life isn’t as good as
those pictures because my furniture isn’t all hand-crafted and distressed or I’m
not regularly eating Tuscan pasta with tomato-basil cream sauce.
My “Pinterest life” looks so much more perfect than my
regular life. Everything just looks so beautiful and easy. And I know those
pictures are often professional photos and are meant to look simple and
desirable, but that doesn’t mean they don’t suck me in every. single. time.
I know this is a problem that has affected us for a long
time—long before Pinterest. Before the internet it was magazines, commercials, billboards,
etc. We’ve always been made to want more. That’s advertising. That’s how it
works. But now Pinterest (at least for me) has developed into this weird form
of free advertising, and what was supposed to inspire me and help improve my
life has just made me feel insufficient. Does anyone else feel this way?
Now, I'm fully aware that it's not just Pinterest that's making me write this angst-y post. It's a lot of things. It's those magazines I read and the commercials I pay attention to, the store flyers I get in the mail and my frequent perusing of Target's website. But lately it's just gotten a little overwhelming and hard to tune out.
Now, I'm fully aware that it's not just Pinterest that's making me write this angst-y post. It's a lot of things. It's those magazines I read and the commercials I pay attention to, the store flyers I get in the mail and my frequent perusing of Target's website. But lately it's just gotten a little overwhelming and hard to tune out.
But then I saw this—on Pinterest, ironically enough—and I
think it needs to be my new mantra:
I need to remind myself of this. I have an awesome apartment
that I’ve filled with things I love and it looks pretty great, even if it’s not
yet my dream place. I live in an awesome area and I’m able to drive around and
see and experience some pretty amazing places and things. I have an awesome
family, an awesome boyfriend, and some awesome friends who love me and
support me (and even leave me lovely comments on my blog). I’m blessed, and life is pretty awesome.
But I forget that sometimes.
So I think I need to back away from Pinterest. Take a few
more deep breaths. Relax.
And remind myself every day that I am enough. I have enough.
I do enough.
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