My Life is Really Great, I Promise.
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Hey, so I just want you to know:
That my work Christmas party was LIT (lots of fun)! Maybe even better than yours.
That Christmas day was filled with lots of family, food and jokes, the ENTIRE day was perfect.
That the last wedding I attended was an ABSOLUTE movie, I danced the entire night away surrounded by all my friends.
That my New Year's Eve was POPPING last year. And this year will be no different.
That I have friends who LOVE me like family, I've found my tribe. They might be cooler than yours though, sorry about that (I'm not really).
If I said this to your face, I'd sound like a complete idiot. Like what is my actual problem?? And yet I wonder: do I subconsciously try to send similar messages through my stories and posts on Instagram? Because sometimes I do just want you to know that I'm having a great time, that my life is very desirable.
Why? Because there's pressure.
I slide over to Instagram, a scroll here and there and all I see is enjoyment GALORE. In photos and videos, everybody is seen to be living their life like it’s golden. Seeing this can bring up two little areas of doubt:
1. Is my life all that good or exciting?
2. Do I have enough friends?
I know these are absolutely first world problems, so get that eye roll out of your system now if it's coming before we carry on.
Good, let's proceed.
The way the internet is set up, it's easy for people's good moments to seem like the whole story. Maybe that's how mine seem too. Take the Nigerian weddings I go to for example. You might have seen them from my story: the outfits, the colours, the music, dessert tables, flower walls, decorations; it really can all look incredible. And those good moments aren't a lie. Sometimes I briefly pause and take it all in, how amazing this is, how grateful I am to be here, a part of whatever it is, having a great time. In those moments my life really does feel golden.
But, there are also less amazing realities that my stories will probably never show you. You won't see me contemplating strangling one aunty as she pushes in front of me in the queue for food *roll my eyes*, or how the venue's toilets gradually start to look like festival loos by the end of the night. You'd never have known that I didn't even get a seat at the event because every man and his dog attended so the place was too full. These things don't happen all the time but ask another Nigerian who has attended a wedding or two, I'm sure they can corroborate my story in some way.
I want to get rid of the pressure I feel to appear like I'm riding that amazing moment high all the time. And I think that the holidays are a good time to address this pressure for myself and maybe for you too. Social media can sometimes tell you otherwise, but:
It's okay if you didn't have the best Christmas EVER. Maybe there were no presents, maybe the family who are actually family to you is small so your house wasn’t filled with people.
It's okay if you don't have big bad plans for New Year's Eve.
It's okay if your social life only pops, like a lot of us, some of the time.
I'll go a little further to say it's okay if you haven't found your group and have moments of loneliness. I have friends I love but I feel that sometimes.
It's okay to have a life that's a balance of both amazing and basic, exciting and unexciting moments. One of the things I want for 2020 is to be at peace with that fact.
Peace isn't code for settling by the way. It's being grateful for the times when it is all popping off and I feel so alive, and for the moments when I'm looking for something to do because I'm kind of bored or the Friday night when I'm wondering what to watch on Netflix because I. Have. No. Plans. Average or even boring/crappy moments don't mean I need to panic, reinvent myself, change careers or get new friends. Obviously, I don't want the majority of my time to suck but it might be worth waiting out the low moment before I let discontentment come and stress me out. If you agree or can relate then here's to a more content new year bursting with incredible moments alongside the average ones.
P.S below is a little gallery I made, an Anti-gram if you will. The captions below will give you some insight into some of the realities behind the photos. So go on, have a scroll.
The night of my work Xmas party. Yesss, work those earrings girl! I had this acute feeling of loneliness that day at work, so much so that I didn't even want to go to the dumb party that I ended up actually having fun at :)
My sister’s wedding in Greece was an absolute dream. Look at how happy we were. Bet you can’t guess which bridesmaid I was almost ready to come to blows with just before the bridal shower. Awwww.
This was truly an incredible wedding - the decor was second to none! I was also thin as a rake here. In this season I was in an internship that was going down the toilet and I wasn’t really eating all that properly (due to lack to self care).
I don’t remember this night all that well, but what I do remember were the scratchy and uncomfortable dress sleeves.
I looked fine as hell here! But the night itself was a total flop, I had more fun at the pre-drinks.
This trip was so fun and this day was truly lovely. But the thought of going on this trip (during my final year) gave me so much angst and stress that I had a panic attack before and almost didn’t go. My twist-out was cute though.
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