avoidance and acceptance

I have avoided social media for years. I was afraid of the damaging effects of comparing myself to others, especially my faults to other peoples self proclaimed virtues. So I hid in my house with my babies, isolated myself in the fear of not being enough like them, pretty enough, smart enough, busy enough, fit enough, just not enough. I felt that I was not enough for myself and definitely not enough for other people. But in my isolation I created my own monsters, instead of comparing myself to actual people with actual lives and actual challenges, I compared myself to imaginary people, demons of my own making designed to shame me and shadow my life with not enoughness. I thought I was safe from comparison, the thief of joy, but I was enslaved by my own construct of the embodiment of perfection. But it was a counterfeit and when I started to see the inconsistencies within this charade, I challenged the imposter. I realized I don’t know anyone who is like that all of the time. When other women took their masks off I felt I really saw them in their insecurities, frustrations and complaints, in their sins and weaknesses, in their realness, so much like me in their messy, everyday lives. Suddenly, the imaginary walls I had built around these women were dismantled brick by brick when I spoke with them. When they shared their actual lives, it freed me from filling in their lives with glowing pictures of success. Sure, everyone experiences success to some degree, fulfillment and progress, contentment and satisfaction, but I learned I was not alone in the struggle, discomfort, embarrassment, shame, error and suffering that comes with being a human. I saw each woman’s life not only as a beautiful expression of art, of wonder, of love and fulfillment, but also of frustration, of inadequacies, of remodeling and budgets and disagreements and I realized it was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.