From the Un-Balancing Files

Balancing “being my own best friend” along with “being a good friend to other people” has not gone so well. Glad I was prepared for this whole new world to not be a cake walk. Why can’t transitions be cake walks with mocha buttercream frosting? Maybe because then we’d all be like “let’s transition like wildcats all the time!” Still though.

See, being my own best friend was going really well. I’d climbed out of hermit crab status, was spending time being social and by myself, and writing up a storm. Except then, I over-extended myself a teeny bit. A couple great, work intensive opportunities collided together in a sparkly force of sheer awesomeness – and saying no was an option, but it was the last option I wanted to take. So I picked up a great freelancing gig with someone I think is rad, rolled the dice on a 55-page behemoth of a project with my amazing friend Cyndy, and of course, it’s wedding season so Vow Muse began running full steam ahead.

Doing a bunch of productive, healthy, and fun things for myself was great…until I realized I was canceling plans and flat out flaking on people to get those things done. I missed a birthday party because I couldn’t pull myself up from a nap and wound up sleeping for 12 hours. I missed a brunch because I knew I literally just couldn’t do it all. I put off a friend I haven’t seen in ages. I skipped a show for a band I always wanted to see but haven’t gotten to. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried to do it all. But between actually making it to social events, my day job, and everything else…I’ve lost balance of it all.

I know I’ve let people down, and it feels pretty gnarly.

But there’s a huge, shiny, silky silver lining to all this: that gnarly feeling isn’t killing me softly. The beast hasn’t awaken within me and yelled You are a hot, toxic mess and don’t deserve family, let alone friends. Okay, she might have mentioned something about my being toxic (I’m working on that! Promise!) but she didn’t say any of that other stuff. Because it’s just not true. I’m trying my best, and even though I think there is absolutely room for improvement, that doesn’t make me a horrible, underserving person.

Right? (AUGH! See, it’s so hard to get away from that old me!)

My friend Aron might have said it best today, when I mentioned realizing I was falling behind a tiny bit: “Why be realistic when you could be optimistic and do it all?” And he’s right. I think I can.

And I will.

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