RouletteWeekend

We’ve officially sprung an hour ahead. The days are longer. The sun is warmer. Pollen is floating through the air turning everything a dusty yellow and I love it. On Tuesday last week, I woke up and it was like the fog of my Seasonal Affective Disorder had lifted. I wonder if that’s what bears feel like when they finally come out of their hibernation. It’s like I was a new person. Things were clearer. My emotions more stable. The sun was still up when I pulled in the driveway from a long day at work. Spring.

I don’t know if I would say it’s my favorite season, specifically, but it is my favorite feeling. I love the smell and sounds of spring. Birds chirping, the first rain on warm concrete, the smell of wild onions when you finally mow the grass for the first time. I’m here for all of it.

When I came out of my Seasonal Affective fog, I made a couple changes in my life. If you’ve been reading for a while or if you follow me on social media you probably know that I had joined a network marketing company that was slinging wellness- workouts and supplements. And I tried so hard to drink the MLM kool-aid, but I just couldn’t find my voice in all of it. Every zoom call, every in-person event said all the right things, “be yourself, you will find your people, be authentic, blah, blah, blah,” but it gave me this overwhelming feeling that I needed to be something I was not… “perfect.”

I’ve known for a very long time that perfection does not exist, especially in my little bubble. I love imperfect. My whole life has been glued together like a piece of broken glass and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So the unspoken goal of being this person that was always doing the right thing, saying the right thing, being the right thing, turned out to be mentally exhausting, as well as the pressure to sell all the time and have to meet specific purchase requirements monthly. Regardless of how much I loved the products, the angry child that still lives inside me does not like being told what to do and how to do it.

So when I came out of my fog, I decided to take a step back (aka a step out) from network marketing. And a crazy thing happened. I started to feel my need for creative things come back to me. I don’t know how the “pressure” of having a “business” and having to “sell” even though I never really did it full time got so inside my head. But there was some sort of switch that when I turned on the facade of network marketer perfect life perfect person, all my creativity flew out the window and locked itself out. When I sat with myself for a while, I realized that I hadn’t really written or created or even really attended very many creative things since I started trying to be a salesperson. So the answer was super clear that I needed to just take a step back. I like messy. I like being imperfect. I like not having the pressure to appear a certain way online and it wasn’t like anyone actually came out and said that you have to be perfect, it was just the whole culture and community of everyone who was doing the same thing were all perfect or pretending to be. Nobody was owning up to what a shit show their life is. It was all, “my life was shit before I started this business and now it’s great.” And while I can honestly say that my life did improve in the time I was using the products and I did meet some really amazing people, the sales aspect of it did nothing but cause me stress and make me feel like a lesser person because I was not as successful as the most successful and those are the only people you ever really hear from on the platforms. Nevertheless, I decided not to continue with it for now. That’s not to say I won’t ever go back and be an affiliate. I do love the workouts. I just did one this morning and they are life changing. It’s just not for me RIGHT NOW.

And I’ve decided that it’s ok.

I’m not going to beat myself up for doing what’s right for me. I’ve seen the damage that always pretending to be perfect in public can cause in your private life and I want none of it. I’m not perfect. I’m so far from and I love that about me. I’m just trying the best I can to be a little better today than I was yesterday. And I just want to write things. Even if it’s just a blog.

It’s 8am. I’ve accomplished the one thing I said I would not skip today. Write something. Everything else will just be a bonus.

I guess the lesson is, if it doesn’t bring you actual joy, don’t fucking do it. Stop tolerating things because it’s expected of you. Go find something that makes you happy and do that instead. We don’t have forever on this Earth, but the time we do have should be valued and spent wisely.

Happy Spring!