My Family, My Facebook life and being alright with it all…

Today my lovely friend and Ava’s amazing Auntie Sara is looking after her while I go and be a human for a few hours. You know get a hair cut and go to the shops with two hands..

While sitting in the hairdressers I decided that I could use my time better by writing and introducing myself to all the new contacts I have made. Let you all know a bit more about who I am and what I am all about.

TWO HOURS doing nothing in a hair dressers chair, is just time I am not willing to waste! (this did start as a Facebook post but got long winded even by my standards…)

I am a Mum, a business women and as sarcastic as they come. I love writing and reading about new ideas. I enjoy interior design, HALLOWEEN, Christmas and travelling the world! That really is my end goal. To live a life where I can travel when I want. Jump on a plane and go away for the weekend without checking the bank.

Its a goal that is way closer to happening than I ever ever imagined! 

I have my flaws.

I always expect the best, I really do from me, from my family from everyone, it can be tiresome for others and exhausting for me.

I also always need to be doing something. This is both one of my greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses. I love doing something to help move myself forward, but I struggle when things don’t happen quickly enough or plans change on me. It makes me anxious and annoying as fuck to be around!

I am working on these but I’ve also accepted that they are part of who I am.

I am all about my family

We are far from perfect but I love the hectic, full on hyper household that we are! My gorgeous man Mark and our three kids, Cameron, Kai and Ava, keep me busy with football and swimming, and violin or whatever else they want to learn to do this week

I could not keep my shit together the way I do if Mark wasn’t behind me the way he is.

He has been behind my career since I got my very first promotion made me dinner and bought me balloons. When I was travelling for work and he would arrange the child care and juggle his work with the household chores. Most recently he told me 100% to go for it! To start my own business. Not a question was asked about what, where, when or how I was going to do it. I was just told unequivocally to go for it.

Now Mark and I are probably the two most stubborn, opinionated, ‘always right, you can’t tell me otherwise’ people I know BUT we are an awesome fucking team. If we want it, we work for it, and go for it and usually get it. (No we don’t have a pug but it is the most apt image I could find for stubborn…)

He is more laid back than I am, he can’t remember what day it is half the time and his memory blanks kill me BUT we have worked out a way to bounce off each other. Say what you like about us, (and plenty of people have had plenty to say about us), we get shit done.

Facebook life v Real life

This is where my mind started going into overdrive. I hear people talk about how peoples ‘Facebook lives’ portray a different story about their life/family and relationships than what is real and it got me thinking…

IS MINE DIFFERENT?? 

Am I putting out to the world this great show while living something else completely??

Am I fuck!

No I do not share on Facebook when my kids are stressing me out, or when I go and  stay with my dad because if I don’t get away from Mark one or both of us are going to end up arrested…

No I never shared on Facebook when we were juggling between paying gas and electric.

No I never shared on Facebook when we’ve lost jobs and couldn’t sleep at night.

No I never shared on Facebook when we thought we might never have kids.

No I never shared on Facebook when my parents were divorcing and my family was the biggest stress I ever dealt with.

Why…?

BECAUSE that is not the life I choose to live. They are shit, small tiny moments, days or sometimes even weeks of my life but THEY ARE NOT who I am or what I am about.

I share the pain I have with those that are close to me.

Those who understand that an argument is rarely one sided. 

Those who put up with me on my bad days and tell me to calm the fuck down when I think the world is ending because something isn’t going as quickly as I would like. 

Pain and hurt and bad days are as big a part of your life as you let them be. I choose to make them something I put behind me as quickly as possible and get back to my real life.

The life I choose to make

The life where my kids are fun. If you know me personally you know my kids fucking rock and I really couldn’t ask more of them. They are amazing people that give me very very little to complain about.

The life where Mark and I are enjoying each others company, pushing each other to be better. Making dinner together, planning our next weekend away. Getting each other through the bad bits.

We have had many breaking points. Many days where we have both wondered if putting up with each other is really, genuinely worth it. The fact is, it is always worth it. We are never going to build the life we want together without having bad and difficult days. Days where we want to give up…

BUT why would we make those days something to focus on?? Something to relive socially??

If you want to see the bad in what you or other people have you will see it. If you spend most days talking about what other people aren’t doing, should be doing or worst still USED TO DO when you knew them five years ago. MAYBE your own perception of the world and life is the problem??

I knew a guy at work and the analogy I used to describe him was that, ‘I could fill his car up with gold and he would complain that I had fucked his suspension…’ No matter what I did it would never ever have been right or good enough. His perception of every situation was to see the bad. A lot of people are like that and they don’t even realise it. 

Your perception of your friends ‘Facebook life’ (for me anyway) says more about how YOU see the world than about how they are portraying it.

• If you see a family photo on Facebook of friends looking happy and content and your making comments to other people about the shit fight YOU KNOW they had last week, why aren’t you just pleased that they have got through it?
• If you see someone buy a new car and they are proud as punch about it, why the fuck are you talking about the debt they took on to get it??
• If you see a friend thanking her amazing man for washing the dishes when YOU KNOW he’s usually a lazy arsehole, why aren’t you patting him on the back saying well done encouraging him to keep doing it, rather than making a snide comment like ‘its about time he helped…’ 

Maybe if everyone spent a bit more time being happy, truly happy in their own REAL WORLDs they wouldn’t have the mindset to keep looking and finding the bad.

You can only ever see the world from where you are viewing it. Perception really is everything… My eyes are focused on the good days, the happy days the exciting days.

Those are the days that make up my story.

Those are the bits I enjoy looking back on.

Those are the bits I will talk about when you meet me in the street.

Those are real reflections of the life I love living.

You want to know what shit fight Mark and I have had this month, you’ll need to come ask…

Better still… Please don’t… I probably won’t remember.