The Highlight Reel

I remember when my first daughter was born.  After a few weeks or so, I needed to get out and get an eyebrow wax.  It was such a small thing on one hand but an enormous one on the other.  I told my husband that I would be out for 15-20 minutes.  He told me that he was taking a walk with our newborn in the stroller.  “Ok,” I said, “but it is almost feeding time, she might get fussy on the walk.”  “She will be fine,” he responded.  “It might not be the right time,” I said with one last ditch effort, and continued, “I’ll be home in 15 minutes and then feed her, and then we can go out for walk together.”  “Nah,” he finalized, “she will be fine.  I want to take my daughter for a nice walk” Uh huh….

After a quick 15 minutes, I was on my way home.  As I turned toward our block, I spotted my husband walking our brand new daughter in the stroller, but he wasn’t walking, he was running.  He was pushing the stroller and running toward our house.  I laughed out loud wishing there was someone else there to witness it.  I knew she was wailing and I knew his idyllic image of a beautiful walk with his new baby was squashed like pulp. 

We live in a new world; a world where we experience everyone’s best moments.  We used to just be able to gawk at Hollywood on Oscar night.  We would see their beautiful gowns and beautiful relationships and wish we could live just a moment in their lives.  We would see a flash of perfection knowing it wasn’t real.  Now, we are envying Joe Shmoe, a passing college acquaintance when he puts an image on Instagram of him smiling with a shot of tequila in his hand…living the life, thinking THAT is reality.  Wait…we think….why aren’t we having a shot of tequila, living the life, at 5:00 pm on a Tuesday?  My daughters are screaming for dinner at that very moment, hanging off my leg.  Argh! No, what we see is the highlight reel.  We see ideals.  FLASH!  We see his best foot forward.  FLASH!

We don’t see him take the shot and cry because he is alone and the only way he knows how to cope is to drink.

We all have images of how life should be.  Are we in the perfect marriage, do we have the perfect children, the perfect group of friends, the perfect life??  The answer is probably an astounding no to most, if not all…for most people.  Nothing is perfect.  Couples fight, children cry, friends’ gossip, and life is never what you think it would be.  It’s hard to notice it because it seems like everyone else is living the “perfect” life putting picture after picture on Facebook and Instagram of where they are when they are having that ideal moment.  What we don’t realize is that they are ONLY posting their best times, and they are NOT posting every minute of every day, the pebbles and stones of life.  We are getting the BEST moments, the moments that they need to boast and that is ok.  We just need to be aware of it.  For singles, it’s at the bar with a group of friends.  Cheese! For couples, it is dining at a fancy restaurant sharing a bottle of wine with their faces pressed together, for parents it is at Disney with their 3 perfect kids hugging Mickey Mouse.  Week after week, month after month we are seeing only the best.  We don’t see that same group of friends passed out on couches from too much drinking and then a splitting headache hangover the next day.  We don’t see them walking the walk of shame, lonely.  We don’t see the couple fighting over which restaurant to choose, walking away from each other in a huff silently cursing one another.  We don’t see the kids screaming and rolling around the ground at Disney.  It is what we don’t see, that we should really look at.   To truly understand reality, we have to recognize the in-betweens.

I think of the highlight reel and then I think about my husband’s walk with our newborn.  I know he thought it would go differently.  I know his image was squashed in an instant.  I know he saw other Dad’s pushing the strollers thinking that would be him now; an easy, relaxing stroll with his baby.  I know reality is never like the images we have in our head or what we get from everyone else.  Reality has grit.  Ideals are just that, ideals; something to hang on to when we are having a bad moment.  If only my children wouldn’t cry in public, if only my husband would take out the garbage, if only my wife could be a better cook, if only I could have a life like my coworker from my first job, she seems to be living.  If only my family was like _____’s family, it looks like her kids are always happy??!!

No.  Reality is quite different.  That coworker could be having money trouble; the perfect family could be battling a serious issue.  We see what we see.  But, let’s be real here.  We don’t see reality. 

We make our choices.  We decide what to do with our lives.  We are here in this moment, because we chose our path, our reality.      

Why don’t we make the most of it?  Why don’t we ignore everyone else and what they are doing and live our lives the way we know how?  Live in the moment.  Choose to be happy.  Understand reality.  Be aware of the highlight reel.  Be ok with the garbage piling up, your children crying, and knowing this is your life.  But, being happy, because you only get one life and it might not go as planned and it might not seem better than someone else’s, but it’s yours.  Love it. 

After I fed my newborn baby, my husband and I went out for that walk.  We walked to Starbucks and around our neighborhood.  We walked for 2 hours.  We had a fantastic time as a new family.

You survive the grit because it only makes you appreciate the sweet that much more.  That is reality.  My husband got his ideal walk.  If we snapped a picture and posted it, we would look like we didn’t have a problem in the world.  You wouldn’t see him running with a wailing newborn, you would see our ideal moment from our highlight reel.  But, we didn’t take a picture, because some things are amazing and personal…

A day at the park with smiles and laughter, dinner as a family when my husband gets home early, getting to the bottom of the laundry, seeing a friend at the park and chatting for an uninterrupted moment, chatting with my mom on the phone for an hour, having a glass of wine with a friend and having a heart to heart on a Tuesday. 

These everyday moments are images on my hightlight reel.  People don’t see it because I don’t snap and post.  It isn’t fancy or flashy but it is mine and I’ll take it.