Perfect.

why is it that the good never feels quite good enough?

when days of momentum and moving forward can so easily slip to ten steps back.

why do we hold ourselves to a bar that seems so unreachable?

yet, it seems it is the only way to get confirmation of doing things right.

i learned very quickly last year to learn to let it go.

to stop holding myself to certain standards of what i thought i should be.

or in fact, what others expected of me.

raising two little boys in the beginning was smooth sailing.  really, i was on top of my mom game and our days flowed smoother than skippy peanut butter.  i was truly proud of the mother i was in the beginning.  somewhere between diapers and hospital visits things changed.  one son with ulcerative colitis, and the other with allergies and severe asthma, i found myself overwhelmed and completely unprepared for what motherhood was to throw at me.

it stirred up emotions that i never quite tapped into.  fear, anxiety, disappointment.  i was always an optimistic gal with a thumb for being able to bring things into perspective.  so swiftly i found myself in situations where i had no idea where i went wrong or how to make things right.  i felt an immense amount of guilt for brody’s diagnosis.  how we went so long for it to suddenly pop up at the age of 5 – that his future with the disease is so unknown.  hovering over owen at every second of his toddler life.  hoping he wouldn’t come in contact with something that would throw him into weeks of an exaggerated asthma attack, hospital stays and breathing treatments.

i felt awful.  i felt like a failure.  i felt exhausted of all of my positive perception i once had for myself.

i vocalized these things to danny – in which he of course shot all negative comments down, coming back with nothing short of the nicest reassuring things to say about me as a wife and mother.

but why.  why did i feel so crappy?

i set my bar way to high.  higher than normal.  which was the biggest problem of all.

my new normal felt everything but normal to me.  and it took time for me to adjust.  keeping it all together and staying strong during the stickiest of times felt impossible, and yet i did it.  it wasnt until things were actually leveling out that i started to fear when things were to go wrong again.   as soon as the waves stood still, it felt to good to be true.  i was just anticipating the next challenge.

it left me with a knot in my stomach.  i needed to stop worrying so much – but when you have a family to care for it seemed like the only thing on my mind.

with faith and family i found myself starting to gain confidence again.  learning that i did not have to be ashamed for not having it all together.  putting on a brave face 24/7 can be draining.

it took over a year of being more honest.  being more in touch with how i really feel.

 it took a year of believing more in myself and more in what was to be.  feeling more confident in that what may come my way i could handle.  maybe not with grace, or without an ugly cry or anxiety attack, but i would come out the other end a better me.

i hope that all mothers out there realize that chasing the “perfect you” is an endless chase.

find perfection in moments that scream everything short of perfect.  striving for perfection seems silly, but striving to do better and be better is simply a beautiful way to live.

  in that very moment of a no makeup, errand running, kids screaming in the car mess.

 while you sit through doctor visits, balancing life as a wife, mother and friend.

 while you feel so out of touch with the real world and feel so consumed in laundry, dishes and wiping boogers.

 lets look at perfection differently.

  valuing yourself and who you are right now will take you leaps and bounds to who you can become.  do not limit yourself to comparison.  don’t hold yourself down to days that did not go as planned.

today, tomorrow you get a second chance.  a second try to getting things a little bit more right.

you are perfect.  you are you.  own it.  learn to love it.

embrace perfection at its least perfect time.

xoxo abby