Warning: Vent incoming. Skip if you don’t want to read. This is intended for no one else’s edification/siphoning but my own. You’ve been warned.

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Every day it’s something. Every day that I think I’m doing so well, I’m on the ball, and then someone says something or I read something and I suddenly feel…less. Less of a good wife, less of a good mom, less of a good woman.

I’m not perfect. I don’t get my decor and organizational ideas from Pinterest, I don’t do flashcards with my ten month old, I let her play with my phone (watch ABCs, 123s, and shapes on Apptivity), I watch TV and my daughter enjoys the news and talk shows, I don’t shop at the Farmer’s Market, my baby girl doesn’t take afternoon naps (they mess with bedtime and then she’s miserable), I don’t make chicken soup from scratch, and the list goes on. I am not fashionable enough to be an Elizabeth Street mom. I am not progressive enough to be called a hipster mom. I like being at home with Elizabeth better than I liked teaching someone else’s children; some might call that laziness or lack of professional/global vision. I haven’t kept up on my piano and flute practice and so my fingers are extremely rusty; some might call it wasting my talents.  I’m not as fit as I was before I was pregnant; according to the most recent viral trending photo, some might ask what’s my excuse (but that’s a whole other bag of worms; I’m actually rather glad for this lady in some ways).

There is so much that I am not that it sometimes feels like it overshadows what I am, and that’s hard. And it feels very painfully human, too. I hate feeling less. And no one does it to me but me. I know that. I don’t need anyone to tell me that. Doesn’t make it any easier to feel more. But tomorrow’s a new day and I’ll try to take a step forward again and find the joy once more. It’s really all I can do, yeah?