Life Lately.

Simply, I want to be happy.

It should be easy, right? I live in an adorable little house, I have an ideal career, I'm engaged to a wonderful man, & I have a small group of lovely friends. When I write my current life on paper, I am ashamed to admit how often I struggle with happiness. It's still a theory to me, an idea, a possibility - but not a sure thing & not a consistent state of being. Like a lot of people, I have struggled with depression in the past, but I feel like now is the ideal; if I'm ever going to feel true happiness, now should be the time, right?

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely plenty of moments of pure unadulterated, sunshiny, glittery joy. I just want to kick it into overdrive & make some choices that will make the down moments not so well-deep, the stressful moments not so stroke-worthy. I want to be better.

I had myself a strangely emotional day on Sunday & made some decisions to make an immediate change, to take control of some of this moodiness & eliminate some of the external noise.

I essentially deleted my Instagram & Facebook. I say essentially because I couldn't bring myself to delete family & friends that live far away; that's just the best way for us to stay connected over mountains & oceans. BUT, I deleted
e v e r y o n e else. & everything got very quiet.

My goal is to be inspired, not inundated. I don't want to have every detail of people's lives in my face every minute of every day. I want to feel like I can have a conversation with someone & not know everything that they're going to say because it was already spelled out on Instagram & Facebook.

I want to be reminded of how vastly multifaceted my friends are. I want to discover them & get to know them by conversation - bottles of wine, great meals cooked with care. I don't want my relationships to revolve around social media, around the facade that our egos build online. I am especially guilty of this - posting a pretty little highlight reel online to show how I want my life to appear to others. It's silly, self-indulgent, & a complete waste of time.

Ultimately, I'm not interested in public perception or approval of who I am. So why do I partake in such a farce? Why do I let myself get sucked into excessive foodstagrams & mindless status updates? Why has my psyche allowed me to think that a quick 'like' of someone's artwork, music, poetry, or life event is enough? We should be having discussions, we should be sharing in a more meaningful way. I don't know every way to make this change yet, but this is where I'm starting. I'm taking my interactions more seriously & putting more effort into my relationships. And I think this will also help me to have a quieter mind - to focus on time when it's available, focus more clearly on my own goals & a little less frightened to make mistakes & do things on my terms.

I'm still getting used to the change, reaching for my phone every few moments & then realizing that I'm all logged out & shut down. But this will become a habit, just as it became so easy to be constantly attached. I hope.

I'll continue to post here because I like our little corner of the internet, just as I cherish my Pinterest & Tumblr. Inspiration du jour, my friends.

Good luck out there, guys.
xx chlo.