Grocery Cart

This morning I opened bloglovin before journaling gratitude. Normally that is a misstep, normally (or what I want to be normally) I drink water right after I wake (that really don't happen yet, but it's my new intention) and I either get dressed for the gym (mon, wed, fri) or I get some breakfast and sit down with my journal. I'm having a bit of a time figuring out the details exactly, balancing the variables and the expectations. I'm quick to jump in and demand the world of myself, but it doesn't stick. So I'm working on reasonable, small steps paired with routines to get me where I want to go.

That being said, this morning I did grab my breakfast, but not my water... hold on a sec, I need to drink some of that... and I opened bloglovin to quickly click "mark as read" on a post selling beautiful things (I am not in a place to think about wanting more) and then I was able to feast my mind upon Design For Mankind's post titled The Apple Slice. In, the Apple Slice DfM wrote (quite beautifully) about how sometimes we go to the grocery store hungry, or we show up to twitter, instagram, Facebook and Bloglovin when we are mentally fatigued, frustrated or filling unfulfilled. And similar to when we are at groceries stores with hungry bellies, we fill up our cart (or our mind) with slices of others lives that we want to have.

And your sunlit corner loft, the one by the fiddle leaf fig tree and the sheer curtains, book on lap, bustling city below? That looks pretty nice right now. I want that instead. I want to trade the truth I’ve arrived at ... for a single slice of your life that looks appealing when my eyes are glazed over and my heart is tired.
We know we’re not supposed to grocery shop when hungry. We know the result – a cart full of empty choices that make us salivate but will not nourish. And yet, we do this every day, right here. We blink at the screen, our thumbs scrolling down, down, down. Another sunset. Another macaroon. Another fiddle leaf fig tree.
We are starving, our hunger insatiable. And we mindlessly, accidentally, subconsciously fill our grocery carts – these beautiful minds – with empty choices that make us salivate but will not nourish.

It would be hard for me to say it better than she already did. So I thanked her. I thanked her because she put words to something I didn't fully realize I had been doing. She put words to what happens when we (I) look at these snapshots of other peoples' lives wondering how ours (mine) just doesn't match up or even seem to compete. Sometimes I look at my own feeds, mostly this space and instagram and wonder if others are scrolling through, wishing for my shared slice.

The truth is, and I'm sure many of us now know, everyone has their own problems, they have their own demons they are fighting, and if I were being more fair, there are so many instagram feeds I don't follow of peoples' lives I obviously don't want to trade. I set my grocery store up with only the finest of sweets and treats, and then go shopping hungry.

I'm not writing this to say that I'm going to delete instagram or take a hiatus for x number of days, weeks, months. I'm writing this to say that I want to start showing up to my instagram feed a little more full, and with more intention. As I scroll through feel gratitude for the pretty pictures, the snapshots and know that their context, while beautiful, is not nearly as easy as it seems. Know that the house behind the camera in the shot of a perfectly designed room could be in disarray, or it could not. Either would be fine. Because no matter how much I want and wish for those other slices of good, the not so awful and often times wonderful reality is that I'm here, in my own life.

Here's to showing up a little more full on the good things, or at the very least, a little more intentional. If I find myself on instagram feeling hungry and unfulfilled I want to remember to take a step back, to realize it's just a small slice, and to appreciate it for entertainment value. Then go back to filling up my own cart.

xoxo