on being perfect at 3 am

tonight i fell asleep reading jonah to sleep around 8:30. jonboy tucked us in + turned off the lamp. normally he wakes me up to come to bed with him, but this time – – – he just let me sleep. i woke up to a hungry riggy wanting to eat. i fed him, climbed back into bed + here i am. on my laptop, cross legged indian style, typing my thoughts, on our bed, at 3 am.
i’ve gotten several emails over the passed little while that have left me speechless. all very kind emails, with heartfelt questions regarding perfection. or how + why i am so happy all of the time. to be honest, it makes me instantly feel guilty. like, do i need to post more negative things on here to show that my life isn’t any different than anyone else’s?  please don’t take me the wrong way here. a compliment is a compliment.  but lately i feel like the word perfect has a negative underline that comes along behind it. like maybe it should be written as, aren’t you just mrs. perfect. your house is perfect, your hair is perfect,  your pants are perfect, your leaves on  your tree are perfect, your life is just perfection. i want to say back I’M NOT PERFECT. my life isn’t perfect. my life isn’t any more perfect than yours is. but i won’t. i honestly believe that life is as perfect as we believe it is. we all get to choose how happy we want to be. how jealous we want to be. how good of a sister we want to be. how kind of a wife we want to be. how patient of a mother we want to be. all in all – how perfect we want to be. pardon, some events are out of our control. awful things happen to perfectly happy people. (ha, like the wordage there?) but we have to learn to take the bad with the good + vice versa. i choose to share the picture of the clean half of the balcony, not the side with diapers from yesterday because i was too lazy to walk down to the garage to throw the stinky’s away in the rain. life is about learning to laugh at yourself, recognizing that you don’t have to have a “perfect life” to live a beautiful life. learn to love your life the way that it is + i know that you will feel happy. in my mind, your level of happiness + appreciation for your own life directly affects the “perfect” level that others can see. i truly believe life is what we make of it + that you are only as happy as you think you are or as you want to be. i know that my personal happiness level reflects the choices that i have made throughout my life. i have had to work hard to get to where i am at today + am very proud of the little family that i have.
i am pretty choosy in what i do + don’t share on the internet. this blog is my place to share the happiest moments we share as a family. i love plopping jonah on my lap, scrolling through old posts + letting him relive each adventure. i love watching his little face light up as he watches our movie, or hearing that one of jon’s clients recognizes him from the parrish place blog. such a joy for us to reflect as a family + i will continue to document our happy times together. i love documenting these happy times + will continue to do so for the very reasons i mentioned.

“Trying to be perfect may be inevitable for people who are smart and ambitious and interested in the world and its good opinion…What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”  – – – anna quindlen 

amen + amen, anna quindlen. giving up on being perfect + beginning the work of becoming yourself. i love that so much. lets get to work. i love you all. i love my life. i am far from perfect, but i am happy because i choose to be! 🙂 goodnight.