The Crazy Cycle, and Getting Back to the Basics

Like many other women, I compare myself with others. A lot. No, really - a lot.

I know it's sort of a "thing" we do, consciously or subconsciously, but the other day I woke up to the truth of how destructive my habit had become.

Here's the funny thing, though. I haven't been out much lately, unless you count the recent trips to the park or Target. And when I do go out, I honestly haven't been comparing myself to anyone. In fact, most of the time, the people I see are moms of small children like myself, so I identify with them, sympathize with them, wish them luck on getting through their day.

I found the bad habit resides online. And not in a place I expected.

I follow blogs - lots of them. Cooking blogs and decorating blogs and personal blogs and encouraging blogs, blogs about family, blogs about faith, blogs about art and homemaking and writing and crafts. Blogs as diverse as the people who write them. But yesterday I realized something that many of them have in common: most of them make me feel like crap after reading them.

This was a bitter pill to swallow because, ironically, blogging once saved my sanity. I would write for no one but myself, about anything, whenever I felt the urge to do so. Nothing was off limits, and I wasn't hindered by the thought that I wasn't good enough to blog. Soon, I discovered gems in the seemingly endless blog world, writers who inspired me and encouraged me and made me want to become better at my craft. Somehow, over time, that changed. Not because the blogs weren't any good. They were. But something shifted in me, and the more I read, the less I wrote. The more I read, the less I felt like I measured up. The more I read, the less I felt like myself.

A couple days ago I cried really, really hard after I found lots of silvery strands peeking out of my messy pony tail. I hadn't given myself a really good look in the mirror for a couple of weeks; post-delivery bloat and a hazy newborn stupor precluded me from caring much about what I looked like. But on that night, those gray hairs threw me for a loop and my whole world suddenly came crashing down because I hadn't gotten my hair done in a few months.

I laid in bed and began to cry, reeling over my unkempt hair. That's when the spin started. I thought about how frumpy I felt in my now-too-big maternity clothes and my still-too-small regular clothes, which then made me think about how my toddler is better dressed than I am, which made me think about how crabby she's been lately and how I can't seem to spread myself thin enough to make everyone happy, which then turned into being frustrated that I spend every waking minute I have making other people happy, which made me wonder What about myself, for goodness sake? When will I feel like myself again? And why is my life so messy, so ordinary, so far from being the the beautiful adventure I always thought it would be? And I began to think about all the people who had it right, who were living their dreams and doing it with gusto and style.

The next morning, as I sat down to check for blog updates, it hit me: the people I was comparing myself to the night before were authors of blogs--people I didn't even know. And yet I managed to compare myself to them. And then I realized how even though so many of these blogs were written with great intentions, they were hurting me. Not because of them, but because of me.

Let me explain.

When I get up in the morning and pour myself a cup of coffee, I intend to write. I always want to write. But instead of writing, I end up spending my time reading blog updates, and then my daughter gets desperate for my attention and my window of opportunity to write anything closes, and I get upset and discouraged that I'm not doing the thing I love. And then I start to think that it's just as well because I don't have anything to write about. Comparing my life to the lives of the bloggers I've just read about, I feel like my life is terribly ordinary and uninteresting that no one would want to read about it anyway. So I begin to brainstorm ways I can make my life interesting, or projects I can attempt in order to have something to write about, or ways I can infuse personality and character into my otherwise plain old ordinary life. And then I get honest and remind myself how tremendously wonderful my life is and how I sound like an ungrateful little spoiled brat for even entertaining these thoughts. And then I resolve to begin writing about the truth of my life and find the beauty that's already there, starting tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes and I decide to just check the latest blog updates to see what's new before I start writing. And then the whole cycle begins again.

Sheesh. That's a crazy cycle, if I've ever seen one.

In the past few days, I reminded myself that I started blogging to save my sanity. I kept blogging because writing is therapeutic for me. I want to continue blogging because when I write, I see differently. I learn. I grow. I change.

And so, I took a drastic measure to stop the crazy cycle. I cut the blogs I follow down to 10. For a time, I'm only allowing myself to follow 1) blogs written by people I know personally, and 2) blogs that never make me feel down about myself, for reasons which I really can't put my finger on. There are only three in my list; they are blogs written by people I don't personally know, but highly respect. People I learn from and am encouraged by. People who call me up to what I hope to become.

In any case, writing about this is a bit scary because I am pro-blogging.  I love that there is a platform for people like me to explore and share ideas, to inform and to encourage one another. And down the road, I'll start following them again. But for now, this is something I know I need to do to regain some sanity. To see clearly again. To avoid the temptation of comparing myself with people who seem to "have it all together," and focus on writing about the beautiful life I get to enjoy every day.

Not that this will be a cure-all (I still haven't made it to the salon yet, and I'm still between sizes, and my toddler is still cranky...), but at least it will get me back to the basics: I'll be writing, and by writing, I'll be seeing things differently. Learning. Growing. Changing.