Effortlessly Perfect

As much as I wish I was that put-together, super productive, effortlessly talented girl with perfectly styled hair who frequents trendy coffee shops and creates beautiful things - I'm not. I think I started to put this pressure on myself to emulate this kind of "effortlessly perfect" aesthetic because that's all I saw when I first came to California. There are a lot of people who represent this niche lifestyle in LA, so I thought that it wouldn't be hard at all to follow in their footsteps.

HA.

I so desperately wanted to be that person who gets acai bowls after shopping at small boutiques in LA while stopping to take cute pictures of my outfit next to that (surprise) pink wall down the street.

YIKES.

That might be somebody else's life, and I might admire it, but I've got to be real with myself. That's not my life and I can't keep up with that lifestyle day after day.

YES - I do love a good pink wall every once in a while, but goodness gracious I can't live everyday like that. It's just unrealistic and not true to me.

In reality, my hair is a mess 6/7 days of the week and I've had the same jean shorts for probably 6 years now. I eat Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast almost every day and peanut butter sandwiches at least 3 times a week. I'm figuring out how to eat healthier and make things that are easy & nutritious (and tasty), but come ON. I'm never going to use all the recipes I've pinned on pinterest.

I guess I'm writing this to come to terms with myself and give myself enough grace to BE MYSELF. I preach all the time about how media can affect young girls and make them strive for unattainable and unrealistic standards - I just didn't really notice the effect it had on me as well. I guess it didn't affect me in the most obvious way, so I paid little attention to the pressure I felt from what I saw in other people's lives. I think I also felt that it wasn’t important enough to pay attention to.

I realized that I would become frustrated at the fact that I couldn’t plan full, productive days in cute outfits doing things that benefited me academically, creatively, emotionally, and physically. I got angry with myself that I wasn’t taking advantage of my new environment that practically CREATES these types of people, and instead I was sticking to my same routines, tendencies and lifestyle.

It seemed like a bunch of effort to become "effortlessly perfect."

I’ve realized that I’ve put so much pressure on myself. It’s funny too, because literally no one else is actively putting pressure on me to be or do any of these things. However, there are parts of my past that have created present expectations that I feel like people hold me accountable for.

I’ve always been good at school. Period. I’ve always been a good student, received good grades, and for the most part, done well in all subjects. I’ve always been involved, known everyone but not asked for any attention, and have been kind to everyone. That’s how people knew me: nice and smart.

Nice and smart and always does the right thing. This continued into college. My life was “perfect” according to my instagram comments. My beautiful surroundings and obviously privileged circumstances allowed for amazing experiences and opportunities. So I MUST be living a perfect life, right? Everything must be a dream!

Sure! That’s what you expect from the smart, nice girl who does everything right. That’s been my track record. I’ve always been positive & strong despite super difficult changes within my life. I’m supposed to be happy and light-hearted and smiling because that’s what I’ve always done, right?

I keep this heavy expectation in the back of my mind but lately it’s been weighing down on me more than ever before.

I’m realizing I never gave myself a break.

I never took the time to look at why this heavy expectation is there, who put it there (surprise, it's me), and how it’s affected me.

Recently I’ve been going to a therapist for my anxiety and she’s helped me realize a lot about myself in the past few weeks. It doesn’t make it any easier, but it helps me to start to unpack the heavy loads that like to sit in the back of my mind and weigh me down.

I don’t want to disappoint anybody. I don’t want to alienate anybody. I don’t want to let anyone down. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t want to lose anybody.

It’s brought me so much pain to try so hard all these years to not to let a single person down. Even since elementary school – I never wanted to let my teachers down by not giving them my best work. In high school – I was scared that my college choice would be unimpressive. In college – I never want to disappoint my parents by going through this kind of struggle & admitting that it’s impacted me so much.

Basically, I need to come to terms with these two concepts:

I’m not that special – people aren’t sitting by their clocks waiting for me to be successful.

I am that special - I deserve to be happy and successful on my own terms.

Basically, I’ve got to live for me. I’ve heard it before, but I could never apply it properly. I’m honestly still figuring out who I am, which is fine. Oh man, I’ve got to give myself grace and patience.