This past week I decided I wanted to wear a pair of jean shorts I had. A pair I assumed fit. Bad assumption, they didn’t fit. Frustrated, annoyed and horrified, I took them off, threw them on my bed and resorted to the same pair of floral drawstring shorts I’ve been wearing all summer. I left on my extremely clashing, also floral, kimono and threw my hair in a pony tail. Because I didn’t have time to straighten it. Penelope was screaming.

Later in the day, in the shower, I was still stirring over the darn jean shorts not fitting. I started internally beating up on myself. Why don’t you eat better, make more time for the gym, wake up earlier, cook more meals, be more organized, be better at sunday prep. All these things you could be doing better to look better and make your jean shorts fit better and you haven’t. I then started making the game plan to get into these shorts, essentially punishing myself. I’m never going to eat bad again, I’m going to gym everyday. Maybe i’ll do a three day juice cleanse. Maybe I’ll just drink water for the rest of my life. Irrational and extreme planning that always happens in times of frustration. This extreme planning happens because we’re trying to make up for lost time. Then we think of all the time we’ve  spent desiring to look a certain way and have many hours, days, weeks and years that have passed and we still don’t look that way. We still have clothes that don’t fit. Body imperfections. A scale that reads higher than the height and weight charts say we should be. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve collected up many positive changes along the way, we’re healthier, stronger,  but we still don’t look “perfect.” So why is this? Why can’t we just put in the time, to make the extreme changes that will lead us to the perfect body we desire?

Well because frankly, we don’t have time. None of us. We literally don’t have time. Sure I can wake up and go to the gym every morning but right now, I’m choosing to breast feed and that’s my time to pump. Sure I can drink a healthy smoothie every morning for breakfast, but that means I have to chop up 6 fruits and veggies, then clean the cutting board and counter I’ve made a mess of and clean the blender. That’s the 20 minutes I’m laying on the floor playing with my daughter before work. Yes I can eat a salad everyday for lunch. But again, when it means I have to take out the lettuce, cut it up, clean the cutting board, pull chicken off the rotisserie chicken to put in the salad, get out my measuring spoon to measure dressing, I’m adding another 20 minutes to my morning prep, forgoing my shower and clean hair. Ok so wake up earlier everyone says, but no, because sleep is JUST as important. And when I don’t sleep I’m falling asleep at my desk by 2 pm. So then I think well maybe after work I can be more productive with my health, get to the gym, meal prep. But again, that’s the time I chose to work on my schoolwork, spend time with my husband, catch up with friends, do a little extra work.

My point is, we all have to constantly make decisions in our lives about where to spend our time. Unfortunately perfection when it comes to how we look and what we weigh isn’t a priority. If we’re all wearing one size bigger than we want, weigh 20 pounds more than we want, have more cellulite than we’d like but have more time with our kids, friends, work and our passion projects then that’s ok. We don’t have time to be perfect. None of us. It’s a great aspiration or WANT to be perfect but all we NEED is progress. Progress is happiness, not perfection. We can’t achieve perfection, we don’t need to achieve perfection. We’re all perfectly imperfect.

Happy Monday!

Here’s me, hot mess express over here!