The truth is, life is hard and sometimes it seems hard more often then not. Even amid the hard times though, there's always good. There is always beauty to be found, even in the simplest things, even on hard days. I tried for a few months last year to post something positive every day. I think that's great for training our minds to look for the positive, and focus on gratitude. It really does help. The thing is, some days it was really hard. Some days, I really struggled with feeling blue or being frustrated and I got derailed from my happiness posts. The truth is, some days I just needed to be able to document something else, something, not so happy. I still believe that it's incredibly beneficial to focus on the good. It's so helpful to a positive mindset to remember the myriad of happy things that we experience. However, I also think it's healthy to sometimes talk about the bad days. The truth is, it's normal and real to have bad days. It's normal and real to get upset, overwhelmed, emotional and exhausted. I think it's healthy to normalize talking about the good with the bad. Some days, I just didn't feel happy and didn't want to pretend I was. That's the truth.
I didn't need to completely stop posting just because I went through a difficult time though. The truth is, life is difficult. Pretending it's not is living in a fantasy land. It's great to focus on the positive, but no one is happy all the time. I love rainbows and I love butterflies, but it's never rainbows and butterflies all the time. No matter how hard we try to focus on the sunshine, there will be stormy days. There will be dark days that feel foggy and cold. Or maybe it's really hot and humid. There will be days where you never see butterflies, just mosquitoes. And slugs. And that's ok. That's the truth. It's my truth.
So, I'm going to try again, to document memories for my family. I'm going to try to capture some of the happiness simple pleasures can bring, but I'm also going to remember that it's ok to be human and have difficult things to document as well. Because the truth is, life is hard, even when we look for the positive. The truth is, overcoming hard days, weeks, months, is something to be proud of! The truth is, maybe it will even be helpful to look back and remember "mountains we climbed" and struggles we endured. I love the old saying, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" but I'm gonna save that for kindness to people. When it comes to memories, I'm gonna let it be real, I'm gonna let it be truth.
