In the Pursuit of Perfect

This picture always makes me laugh, and I hope it does for you, too.

Can you identify?

We get these ideas in our heads of what our perfect marriage or family or friendship or job or life should look like…  And the reality?  SO much more chaotic. It’s easy to feel like we've failed. It’s easy to start to believe that, if our life doesn’t look like it does in the magazines or even in the show living room of someone you know, then we have somehow failed the magic test of creating a life.

But, our lives are messy and they will probably never look like life looks in your favorite magazine or TV show. But, lives-well-lived-in are lives to be proud of.

My house will never ever be in a Martha Stewart magazine. Seven years after moving, half the rooms are still half-undecorated (mostly due to my complete ineptitude as an interior decorator – but see how I feel I have to explain myself to you??). There’s a hole in my living room ceiling, still unrepaired two years after my husband had to make it when there was a leak in the upstairs bathroom. There are probably breakfast dishes still on the dining room table right this moment.

My kids bicker and fight and poke for no other reason than the express joy they get out of being able to get a rise out of each other.  And the very idea of getting them to all color-coordinate and get along long enough to pose for a photography session is but a pipedream! My car looks like a bomb exploded inside of it.

And yet my life is well-lived-in. It is full of busyness and happiness and friendship. There are books and laughter and, yes, even tears and heartache. But, it is full and it is something to be proud of!

We shouldn’t ever feel less-than because our lives or our relationships or our homes don’t look like they look for people who must surely have it all together. Be proud of what your life is. Be grateful for the love that fills it and the relationships it’s blessed with.

For, at the end… I can’t imagine that I’ll be more grateful for a spotless immaculately-decorated house than I’ll be for the family I raised in it, the love I grew in it, and the laughter that filled it.