Appreciating everyday life.

An aspect of blogging that I both love and hate is the selective nature of it. You get to present yourself at your best, with your most brilliant ideas, during the highlights of your week. However, showing only the organized, cheerful, exciting part of yourself is a little bit dehumanizing, and I hate that.

You know why? Because I love being human. I love my "imperfections". I love my frizzy, curly hair and my oversized men's t-shirt and the faded, smudged eyeliner left on from yesterday. 

Yes, I can make myself look really nice and fancy and done-up when I want to. But let's be real. I wear jeans or shorts and a t-shirt almost every day of the week. I'm still a bit of a tomboy, and I just can't be bothered looking nice all the time. To those people who actually can, well, you go glen coco. Four for you. But that's not me, and I wouldn't change that for the world.

I think a lot of people are scared to be vulnerable or ignorant or weak. And I'm not going to say that being those things isn't a bummer, but there's no reason to be ashamed. Each day is an opportunity for growth. A few people I'm close with are struggling with depression, and the most common phrase I hear out of their mouths is "I can't." So I tell them, yes, you can, you're just afraid. If you think you're a bad conversationalist, that's all the more reason you should take a public speaking class. If you think you're too weak to exercise, it's in your best interest to hit the gym. If you can't embrace something about yourself, don't sit there brooding, because you have the power to change it.

I've become a positive thinker by necessity. I recently clawed my way out of the big black pit of depression, and I have vowed never to go back. So I put my mind into training. I flipped every negative thought and complaint on its head. I took advantage of every moment of my day. I learned to find a balance in my life between productivity and relaxation, friends and family, work and play. I'm still working at it, but you know what? I love life. I love life so much that it makes me want to dance and sing and hug my evil cat and lay in the middle of my lawn probably getting a hell of a sunburn and sit here writing a blog post about all of this with the biggest, stupidest grin on my face.

This was going to be a post about making the most of life by doing things like sitting outside with your computer or exercising while watching TV or something like that, but it turned into a big sappy inspirational speech.

Typical.

Anyway, enjoy a black-and-white webcam selfie of my natural lazy-day face, and have yourself a wonderful Monday evening.