Picture “Perfect”

They say a picture is worth a thousand words,

but my life’s not picture perfect.

My floors need mopping

My laundry needs folding

My kids watch too much TV

My husband and I are way past finishing each other’s sentences…

We usually can’t finish a sentence

Too many interruptions

Kids need help with homework

Family needs help with a crisis

Teens have questions about social life, their future life, just life

it’s not perfect

but social media makes you wish for perfection

Everyone props up their lives on tripods

So they can be seen in the perfect light

Everyone’s kids are star students

Sports champions

Beautiful, handsome and popular, of course

Families vacation in Europe

Homes are flawless

as rays of sunlight hit the carefully positioned still life on the kitchen counter

I know…you woke up and it looked like this

But, I’m over it

My sink is overflowing with dishes,

I came in late from a meeting and cooked dinner at 8 o’clock

Who has energy for dishes at ten after working all day?

Not me.

My perfectly imperfect life will have to do.

It doesn’t make for a nice Instagram pic

No one will ever like or share my life story

But it’s the real story.

It’s real life, not still life

Something I think we’ve lost sight of in all our efforts to capture “real life” in our stories, on our pages, for our friends who aren’t our friends, but just a million nameless followers for whom we live… and we’d certainly die if they ever discovered the truth.

 

Photo by Ionut Coman Photographer on Unsplash

Heartburn

Everywhere I looked today I saw rejection.

Every hello was preface to “good-bye,”

Every smile, a scheme in disguise.

Every frown was meant for me.

Every possible could not be.

Every eye, hollow

Every friend, shallow

Every brow, furrowed

Every hand, burrowed

in a pocket.

Backs turned,

“bread” burned,

indigestion.

Because life can be hard to swallow.

Cover photo credit: pixabay.com

#DailyPost

Audience of ONE

We’re little children toiling like architects in our sandboxes crafting temporary structures, scratching and scraping all day,

pouring out our hearts with blood and

sweating out our souls into this work until it’s perfect

or until there’s nothing left in us.

Then, when there’s nothing left, we step back with pride to see what our love has made

and we’re glad to see the finished product soaring before us!

It’s something!

Despite its imperfections, we’re proud

and  anxious to share it

so we run, barefoot in the streets, calling out to you—wherever you are

“come and see what we made!”

“Come and see what we created out of the dirt!”

It was nothing before, just sand, bits of paint, scraps of words…

it wasn’t pretty at all, but look at it now!

Now, it’s something.

We made something where there was nothing before and we want you to see. We want you to like—no, we want you to love it.

It is our work, our blood, our soul…

our work…

but it is incomplete without your approval.

The artist needs an audience–

even if it’s just ONE.

Cover Photo credit: pixabay.com