The Comparison Game: A Pandemic Evened Playing Field

Life in your 20’s feels like a giant comparison game a lot of the time. I think it’s because you often know someone’s starting point: college, high school, early on in their career. So there’s this built in bench mark that we’re able to judge others (read: ourselves) against as we go through this time period in our life that’s full of change, advancing, falling down, getting back up, and repeat.

Graduations, promotions, big moves, engagements, weddings, babies, divorces: they all become this systematic ladder we climb alongside the people we surround ourselves with and care about. And we’re all happy for each other, usually with a heaping side of self-evaluation, jealousy and questioning.

So what happens when something totally unpredictable (well to an extent) and unexpected comes along and quite literally forces everyone to be stuck exactly where they are? What happens when weddings are postponed, graduations are virtual, no one sees your growing bump, you lose your job or you move back across the country to live with you family? Well it’s somewhat of a sudden and un-welcomed evened playing field.

We’re all stripped of our ability to share these life changes with the world, for now, and we all slowly begin to shift back towards the middle as time stands still and we wait.

Now I am well aware of how incredibly fortunate it makes us that these changes are the worst that is happening to us right now, and I am well aware of how incredibly privileged I am that I am not sick nor do I have any loved ones who have been seriously impacted by this insane virus. I do not say that this is an even playing field as a point of misery or out of complaint. I think it’s an important time to stop and look around us.

As this ladder we’re all climbing lays flat on the ground, what do we all really have? Do you have real relationships with people you can count on? Do you still find that you love and are loved no matter where you stood on the comparison pole? Have you found peace in alone time and slowing down? Have you stopped to look inward and recognize where you are in life to yourself and how far you’ve come?

When this “game” of life we’re playing is swept clean, there are few things that truly matter, and it’s not where you stand in comparison to any other human. What’s important is if you’re happy, if you’re growing and if you’re content with who you are.

full vs. fulfilled

So often in life there’s an emphasis placed on living a “full” life. A life filled to the brim with adventures and stories and exciting “things” that make us feel like we’re doing something with our precious and short time here on this planet. A life filled with moments not spent “missing out”. A life spent packed with moments that I can share with the world. And there is value in that. There is value in the doing. In the creation of memories. In the time spent on the go, surrounded by others and out there in the world. But living a “full” life doesn’t always equate to a life fulfilled.

When I look back on the last 28 years and 6 months of my life, there are a lot of things I’ve done. A lot of choices I’ve made to be out there in the world. A lot of moments spent being somewhere with someone(s) and doing something. But so many of those moments are just that and that alone. They are space taken up in the timeline of my life, but they didn’t actually add any value to my life. In handfuls of instances they actually probably took away value. There are not the minutes or hours or days I will look back on when I’m old and grey and be glad I lived. They were time filled, not fulfilled.

And while this seems like a negative realization, the good news is that I know exactly what moments I did feel fulfilled. The moments that made me laugh out loud, that I helped someone, grew closer to someone I loved, made a difference in someones life, made a difference in my own life. There moments protrude from my memory. And the better news? I have the ability to choose a life of those moments that bring meaning instead of filling time. I can choose to pluck out the moments that don’t overflow with purpose and value and joy or lessons-learned.

I can keep the brisk morning walks with my two unruly and adorable dogs where I’m laughing and smiling to myself over the joy they bring me.

I can keep the nights spent dancing in the kitchen with just my husband to Christmas music after everyone has left our party.

I can keep the stories told and deep talks with friends over wine on the floor of our friends lakehouse.

I can keep the belly laughs with my mom and sister standing in the kitchen on Thanksgiving.

I can keep the books I’ve read that have changed me to my core.

I can keep the hours spent with kids who are stronger than I’ll likely every have to be.

I can keep all of those, and I can let everything else go. I can stop filling time and focus on filling my soul with the things that matter. I can stop having a life that is full and start being fulfilled.

thankful.

Thankful this year is truly an understatement. While this year has had it’s fair share of change, challenges and frustrations, it has also been immensely full of joy, adventure, love and growth, and for that I am beyond grateful.

As G and I set off on our rounds of four (yes, four!) Thanksgivings, I can’t help but feel so overwhelmed with how amazing this life is and so excited for what next year will bring. I am also trying incredibly hard to just soak in this exact season of life, as it is.

This year has brought so many things to my life. I moved in with Gavin in early 2018. We adopted our sweet and crazy (and very neurotic) Griff. We took two amazing international trips, that I will never forget. We go engaged (!!!) and planned a majority of our wedding. I started a new job that I love. 2018 has been abundant in blessings.  It has also brought so much learning and growth personally, professionally and in our relationships with each other and others in our lives.

I am so incredibly grateful for all of these things and for the health and happiness of the people I love and care about. This life is truly so, so good.

Happy Thanksgiving! xx

how i remind myself to be there for my people

I am in a crazy season of life, and to be honest, I can barely keep track of what I have going on in my world most days, let alone anyone else’s. When things get busy, sometimes I start to feel like I’m not being the friend or fiancé or family member I should be. It’s important to me to be there for the people I love and care about, and I was struggling to do that.

With everything I have going on in my own life, I needed to find a way where I could still nurture and maintain the relationships that are important to me. I decided to apply a strategy I use for other important things in my life to the relationships I have. I don’t know about you, but unless I set a reminder to pay a bill or submit a form for work, I will likely forget. So, I set a reminder in my phone that notifies me when I need to do these things. I mean, there’s a large chance I wouldn’t have received a paycheck in the last year and a half if it weren’t for iPhone reminders. This is a full-proof way for me to stop and take care of what I need to in the moment, no matter what other things I have going on right then.

I thought, why not apply this to my relationships? These people are important to me, and it’s not an option for me to let these people down. So, I started setting reminders for me to be there for these people.

If I knew a friend had a job interview coming up later this week, I set a reminder to text her an hour before to wish her good luck. If it was my sister’s birthday but I knew I also had a million morning meetings that day, I set a reminder in my phone to call her and tell her happy birthday first thing. If I knew Gavin, my fiancé, was having a really important meeting tomorrow afternoon, I set a reminder to encourage him and check-in on how it went. And if I knew a friend was going to have a particularly hard day coming up, like a family member having surgery or the anniversary of a death, I set a reminder to reach out to them or send them a note or flowers.

I’ve even used this a lot in my relationship with Gavin, and we live together and see each other every single day. It’s easy to forget to make those small and loving gestures when many days are chaotic, and you’re just going through the motions. But if I set a reminder to pick up his favorite ice cream on the way home or leave him a sweet note in the morning, it can make all the difference and completely shift the tone of our relationship.

At first I felt kind of weird about it. I asked myself “is this cheating?” and “does this make me a bad friend in disguise?”. But I realized that it didn’t matter how I remembered these important moments in my friends’ and families’ lives, it just mattered that I did and that they knew I was there for them and cared about them.

It’s not realistic (unless your brain capacity is much larger than mine) to remember every big and little thing that’s going on around you, so why not get the help where you can? It might seem like a no-brainer, but this little trick that I’ve implemented into my life has reduced my guilt and my stress. And it’s made me more present with those I love, which is what really matters.

How do you make sure you show up for the important ones in your life when it matters?

a new morning routine

Gavin and I got engaged a little over four months ago at the beginning of summer. We spent those months doing all that the season and a new engagement brings- delicious tastings, baseball games, indulgent meals, day-long neighborhood adventures, making more decisions than I knew was possible, sweet celebrations and more.

It was all wonderful and exciting. By mid-September, though, I was feeling exhausted and drained, and Gavin told me he felt the same. All of these activities and plans, that were supposed to be fun and productive, ended up leaving us feeling worn out after four months. We’d spent so much time doing so many things that we forgot we needed time to rest to feel good. Every day was feeling rushed and incomplete, and every day seemed to have more going on than the last. We decided we needed a reset.

I had recently read about a new journal focused on goals, productivity and planning over a 13 week period. It sounded like just what we needed to make the most of the rest of 2018 and hit the reset button on our lives that had somewhat spun out of control. We started using the SELF journal from BestSelf, and while it’s been awesome for setting goals and planning out our days, weeks and months, one of my favorite (and unexpected) outcomes has been our new morning routines.

Typically we’d roll out of bed at the last minute to start our separate and uncoordinated tornado of morning tasks and getting ready, which ended in a rushed goodbye and sprint out the door by one of us. But for the last 10 days, things have been much different.

We both wake up around the same time at 7am (unless we’re braving the 6am spin class), and one of us walks into the living room and asks Alexa to play a pleasant Spotify station. We tidy up the kitchen and living space, feed the dogs and make the bed. I make coffee, and we both settle in with our journals to write out our schedules and goals for the day and three things we’re grateful for.

It only takes about 15 minutes to do all this, but it has made all the difference. We start our days in a much calmer, more prepared and undeniably grateful place where we’re in sync with each other and with ourselves. We know what we want to accomplish that day and what we each have going on. We come home to a clean house and decrease that post-work flood of stress that happens when you walk into a mess after a long day. And we’re not missing those extra 20 minutes of sleep in the morning one bit.

Gone (for now) are the days of starting our days in chaos. And that feels so so good.

What have you done to hit the reset button on your routine?

“branding” the little things

Have you ever noticed how giving an official name to something makes it feel that much more special? Date Night. Wine Wednesday. Movie Marathon. Bachelor Monday. The concepts are all pretty simple, but calling it something makes it exciting.

“Branding” is everything, even in your day to day life.  Finishing off a bottle of wine in a solo cup while you take the dogs on a walk to get out some energy is just fine. But establishing a weekly “Sip and Stroll” with your boyfriend or roommate, a little more magical. The ordinary becomes exhilarating, and the things that occur naturally anyways get an extra jolt.

Sometimes that’s all you need to turn an average week into something more. Brand it. Make the bike ride on a Saturday morning into your Bagel Bike Ride and turn your love for tacos and a homemade Margarita into a Mexican Fiesta. Take a lazy rainy afternoon watching old reruns, add a face mask and a candle, and call it your own relaxing Spa Day day. Boost your own week, and your mood, by simply branding it.

What activities or days have you branded to add a little excitement to your week?