There was a point in my life when I posted on Instagram a LOT, and a friend I don’t see often said “your Instagram is so cute and tidy!” To which I laughed and explained that if I was taking a picture of something I just shoved the mess out of the way for the sake of the photo.
I have been having a really hard time with that lately. Our apartment is small… cozy, if you will. It was perfectly fine when it was just Justen and I. Sure there would be clutter (I think I was born with clutter), but it was never anything over the top or unmanageable. Small pile of paper here or there, stuff like that.
But Madeleine eventually started growing out of clothes, and we started to run out of room for those things. Then she started to grow out of STUFF – like she had this cute little infant bath tub that she used for well over a year but now she just sits in the tub.. where do we put that whale? She has the same AMOUNT of clothes, but they’re way bigger than the storage solutions we got for her 0-3 month clothes, so now we honestly don’t have room for them all unless there’s a hamper full of dirty clothes.
and the sippy cups! and snacks! and bibs and utensils and bowls and.. well, stuff.
It’s exhausting and our cozy apartment is becoming smaller and smaller.
I have had so many moment over the past year or so that I’ve wanted to document or share, but then I look around and go “man this place looks so trashed.” so I go to sleep determined to get EVERYTHING clean so I can take some pictures or something… but then I just wake up in survival mode.
Many years before I met Justen, I remember telling my friend Donna about how I thought I’d be happIER if I was married. I said I was perfectly fine being single but I had an idea that my happiness could grow if I was married (it has). Donna, who struggled with infertility the whole time I knew her, reminded me that there will always be greener grass. She said sure, you’ll be happier when you’re married but then you’ll think “I’ll be happier when we have a house,” and then you realize you’ll be happier when you have kids to fill that house. There will always be some mythical land of “happier.”
and I think that applies to where I’m at right now. I think, “I’ll have more to say, I’ll feel more at peace, I’ll want to share more, when I can get on top of all of this MESS.” but the reality is that if I cannot find any of that right now, among a couch covered with pillows, a corner of stuff we can’t figure out where to put and a box of board games taking up room in our kitchen because that’s all we’ve got… then I’m not going to really find peace and words and the desire to share when it’s all taken care of.
The more time I spend sitting around waiting for perfection, the more time I let slip away and go to waste.
Just a few thoughts that have been circling back to the front of my mind over the past few days. Trying to embrace the messy seasons, not just in piles of laundry 🙂
Linking up with Your Whims Wednesday, Wonderful Wednesday
