Anyone else find the whole “Living My Best Life” craze interesting? I see it on social media every single day. Not “today was really fun,” or “I had a great time this weekend,” or “my kids truly enjoyed the park.” Everyone is just out living their best life. Don’t get me wrong, I love the positivity, and seeing all the fun that everyone is having. Especially pictures of people making memories (multiple selfies of a slightly different smile/angle don’t do it for me.) Show off those pics of your brave babes jumping off the dock!

We get exactly one life. It can’t be compared or ranked. It’s absolutely your best life. But it’s also the worst life you are ever going to get. It’s the calmest and the wildest, the loudest and the quietest, and the happiest and the saddest.

Me, personally, I just can’t get caught up in the hoopla of sharing pretenses of a perfect life and never ending euphoria. It’s just not reasonable, and it’s not who I am. I’ll never pretend that my happiness scale rating is always at a 10. Of course we all share some fun things that we do with our families, we photo dump the best stuff, because that’s what we want to recall- that’s what we know will make us smile later.

But I can’t discount the sad days. The days that heartbreak makes it hard to get out of bed. The days that I have to remind my kids 6 times that it’s not worth fighting over who said something first (or anything of equally low importance.) The days that nostalgia leaves a lump in my throat all day. The days I worry about the world, and what we are handing to our children and grandchildren. The days that I wish I could time travel: 2 years, 10 years, even 35 years back (disclaimer, I’d have to skip over the late 90’s to have any chance of keeping my liver intact.) The days that I question things I have always believed to be true. The days that my head hurts from the moment I get up until I fall asleep. The days I wish certain things came more easily to me. Those days, and those emotions, they exist, too. I seek out positivity in the tough days, but I can’t pretend they don’t exist.

I choose happiness and I choose joy as much as possible. Nobody in their right mind would choose anything else. I love laughing, sometimes until I can’t control my face, and I turn red and sweaty and I struggle a bit to breathe. But I know that no matter how hard I try, I can’t force a 10.

I live through the days where I peak at 5, and I find as much as I can to appreciate about each day. On days that my garage feels too small, I remind myself that at one time I had no garage, and at one time a garage like this was a dream. It’s really easy for me to do with my kids. As much as they pester one another, they spend more time laughing and just loving each other. There was a time (which feels like a really long time) that I would have given anything to become a parent. I can work through the bickering, knowing that a dance party is just around the corner, which will leave all of us laying on the floor laughing together.

You may see a lot of smiling pictures that I share, but know that I soak up the average and less than average moments, too. Honestly, I imagine that there will come a time that I’ll miss the sound of bickering in my house. Without feeling the lows, I can’t really feel the highs. As much as I love the feeling of a 10, I know that there’s no way that I could possibly appreciate it, without making it through a 2.

I’m going to get out and do what I can to enjoy my only life. The best parts, the worst parts, and everything in between.