When will I ever learn?

I'm too personal.

I shouldn't write about others the way I do.

I say stuff lightly that others can't lift.

I wish I didn't link to Beth in my post last week. I've regretted it ever since. I was being light (and I felt light  - I loved Beth's post, which is why I linked to it) but some people didn't see it that way and I regret that.

Some of the comments on my Follows Back post also made me realise that I can be too harsh and judgemental.

I try not to be judgey. But I just am. Maybe I'm a bit of a nasty bully after all. The thought of that makes my heart soggy.*

So, apologies to my dear friend Beth. She knows I love her, but now you do too.

And apologies to the Follows Back people. I shouldn't have judged.

I'm not going to be posting for a while. I'm a bit tired of myself, to be honest.

Happy days to you!

x

* Thank you, Maxi-Taxi, for describing so well a feeling that is mostly indescribable.

[Image found (rather randomly!) here]

Making me laugh

It is a truth universally believed by me that the ability to laugh at yourself is the best ability there is. Life is funny and we are the funniest things in it. I get a right good crack up out of my own stupidity, gaffes or seeming inability to spell SpHinx on a daily basis. It seems science is finally cottoning onto my universal truth - if you can laugh at yourself you're apparently more cheerful and less serious (Really! The things they learn through research! It's amazing! Exclamation!).

Toushka wrote a post last Friday that perfectly showcased why laughing at yourself is the best medicine there is. Caz had a great laugh at her "mummy brain" on Saturday. Mrs Woog does it daily.

I think my mother would be breathing a sigh of relief as she reads this post (hi Mum!). When I was a youngster, I took myself very, very seriously. Very serious. I used to actually cry when my Mum encouraged me to laugh at myself, I think I thought that admitting my failures was the biggest failure of all and heaven forbid you expect me to actually draw attention to them. I was just so embarrassed to admit any kind of weakness or failing.  Like some kind of weird android.

These days I've grown up and my own humiliation is something I think is ridiculously funny. Making myself laugh is one of my favourite past times. I'm glad I grew up. I grew up, had a bloody good laugh and now spend my days encouraging a (crying) Cappers to laugh at herself. She is very, very serious... Very serious.

Can you laugh at yourself?

[Image by *Cinnamon]

Not just for losers

I understand that many bloggers like to keep their blogs as their 'happy place'. They feel that the good memories are the ones worth recording and their blogs reflect that. I get it, sort of.

But in a lot of ways, I can get a big slap of 'happy place' from women's magazines, where newborns are all 'angels' and celebpretties wax lyrical about their tiny thighs and enormous meals. The same women's magazines that made me feel like a fat loser all through teenagedom and an even fatter loser after that.

A loser because I didn't have a boyfriend. A loser because I didn't have straight hair. A loser because I couldn't afford designer clothes, a personal trainer, a salon wax, frosted tips or, during the early nineties, Hammer pants. A loser because... well, I was me.

Easy solution: I stopped buying those stupid mags in my late twenties and never really looked back. Oh, okay, I swapped my addiction to women's mags for my addiction to house porn, but you've gotta start somewhere right? See, now I'm just a loser because of my house. It's not really about me any more.

Intellectually I'm aware that those house porn mags 'fake it' (loving the connotations attached to that sentence!). Intellectually I know that they back the truck up full of the latest and greatest and practically shove the featured family out of the way to create their 'styled casual' home for them. But emotionally, I'm attached to that idea of 'the perfect family home' that looks like that all the time. Emotionally I believe that there are families out there that live with all-white furnishings that stay white; that their children's toys are only made of wooden and recycled tyres. Families that exist in colour-coordinated clothes that don't clash with their smearless red Smeg fridge and matching crumbless toaster.

So, intellectually, we get it; emotionally we just plain want it. Marketing geeks (of which I am one) call it 'aspirational marketing' and, I'm telling you, they go out of their way to make you feel like what you've got right now isn't good enough. There's great stuff in the world and you're not it.

Fortunately my new 'happy place' is the land of the smoodgy, smudgy, smidgy world of beautiful blogs that are real and honest and true. The happy and the WTFHT*? As much as I love a styled 'occasion', I love even more the flaws, the mishaps, the madness and the muddy mess of life. I often wonder why I visit the over-styled blogs when I've got my house porn to keep me feeling sufficiently loserish (there is a book out there called 'The Perfectly Imperfect Home' - I kid you not! Get a life!). I just don't need the blog world to turn on me as well. So, keep letting it all hang out there, bloggers of the world. I embrace you and the wind you threw your caution to.

Do you let it all hang out? Or do you hang back a little? 

Is your blog your happy place?

* What The Fuck Happened There?


[Image by schorlemädchen]

I'd make an excuse, but...

I've been thinking a lot about excuses lately. All the reasons why we can't do something; all the reasons why we won't. This week I've heard reams of excuses from parents who can't / won't help out at the school. From colleagues who can't / won't meet a deadline. From the Tsunamis who can't / won't do their homework, have a bath, eat their dinner, forgodsakegotobed. But mostly excuses uttered by myself for one reason or another.  I even make excuses for why I'm making excuses.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking only one thing about excuses any more.

Excuses suck.

I was particularly interested in the list of excuses that followed my friend's recent statement: "I want to be happy, but..." I want to be happy, but. Have you ever heard a more poignant statement?

After a long and involved conversation, all the reasons why she can't / won't be happy came down to these:

1. I don't have time (to be happy)
2. My children are too needy (for me to be happy)
3. I'm too fat (to be happy)
4. I'm addicted to TV so I can't spend as much time doing the things I love (so I can't be happy)*

We both agreed: excuses really suck. You might have also met their close cousin 'If Only'. Both are just self-delusion in a pointless disguise. A way to disown responsibility because if you think you don't have control over something then it's not your fault if you fail.

I'm challenging myself to own my actions and stop making excuses. Rather than palming things off with a 'because' or an 'if only,' I'm going to dig deeper and find out the real reasons why I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I want to be in the position where instead of making excuses, I'm making statements.

Do you find yourself making too many excuses? 

Do you know why you do it? 

What sorts of things are you trying to avoid?

* My personal favourite.

[Image via weheartit]