When you're not feeling quite beautiful or smart enough...

So frequently the world tells women that they are beautiful and smart. That we are the future, that we have some sort of magical womanhood that makes us these glorious beings. That's a lot to live up to! See, we have to be beautiful and smart, and and good girlfriends and sisters and daughters, but not give up our independence. We're supposedly able to hold high powered jobs, and keep house, and be able to do it all while looking fabulous. It's a long way from being property, and thank God for that, but hell, it's a lot to deal with.

I come from a family of incredibly independent and strong women. My mum is phenomenal; I don't know if it's 23 years of motherhood, or what, but that woman knows just about everything there is to know about raising a family and keeping a house. You know what else there is to know about my mum? She has a Master's degree, and has worked and raised my sister and I for the whole time. My sister is this amazingly talented person. She's also working on her Master's and gets accepted to international conferences, and is gorgeous, and just generally rocks. My aunt is a university professor who goes on these crazy trips and knows all this stuff, and is one of the most outgoing, funny, nice people I know. I will also add that my dad is the kind of guy that encourages excellence and is there every step of the way supporting us girls on our way to get there.

So please excuse me for saying it, but what do we do on those days when we're feeling utterly ordinary? I have to be beautiful on the inside and the outside?! I have to be my best self? I have to pick myself up out of my shlump and get on with life after horrible marks in school, body image issues, and and overwhelming feeling of doom?

Yeah. F-ing. Right.

Sometimes it's those inspirational things that make you feel so bad in the first place. If I have to be my best self, and feel beautiful inside and out, where is the space for when you don't feel that way?! Then I just feel worse because I don't feel beautiful inside and out. And I guess some people just aren't going to get that, and it's so hard to explain. It's just some little monster that's crept into your spirit and made you feel bad. Luckily, I'm writing this the day after the bottom of my slump, and, luckily, I have this swell person who hugs me while I cry about it, even after I've pissed him right off with my unexplained, unreasonable frustration [and on the regular days where I'm not in an unexplained slump, he's the one that makes me feel amazingly beautiful all over].

But today I woke up... and I felt bounced back. Went grocery shopping for the first time in like, 3 weeks. Made two dozen muffins. Painted my toenails. Just did regular things. And I started to feel normal again. So I guess it goes away!