Expectations vs. Reality

Well hello friends and cheers, it’s that time of day when my cold diet dr pepper consumption is at its high and I am trying to make it through the never ending task list that seems to grow every time I walk away from it. Which had me stirring on what I wanted to write about here in this well… neglected space.

The other day (and by other day I mean more than a month ago because I started writing this on Feb 9th…) on my instagram stories I started to chat about expectations and reality. I specifically mentioned that sometimes the expectations we set forth are so exciting at the time that we are often let down or disappointed by what becomes reality later, and through that disappointment - we give up on the dream that led us to set the expectation in the first place.

A few months ago I finally bit the bullet and bought a domain. After annoying the 7FC (the 7 friends club for those who dont follow me on instagram is what we call our community of amazing humans living in their own chaos) about a name change for what seemed like 1298928323 years, I landed on changing to Melissa in Chaos. It felt like the brand that was most authentic to me and described . Our instagram community was growing and it felt like a natural next space to FINALLY get into blogging like I had been encouraged to do so many times.

This was my expectation… (insert perfect photo of me in makeup, cute outfit, and my amazing office looking exactly as I always intended it to)

Casually writing in my office, sharing stories of the chaos of being a military wife, special needs mom, creating a safe space to share about postpartum depression, anxiety, occasionally working with brands, and linking up all the cute curvy girl finds. A landing spot for all things chaos, encouragement, friendship, and tummy tucking leggings, of course. Like buying a website domain would magically make all the other responsibilities I have easier or magically take care of themselves. Blogger EXTRAORDINAIRE …

But as the work started to come in, the sharing, the ideas for writing, the things I wanted to put out for encouragement and love… and honestly trying to keep up with how others ran their blogs… I became so overwhelmed …

So what did I do?

I stopped….. and by stopping… I abandoned the dream of what I wanted this space to be in the first place.

And for a moment, because of my expectations crashing into my reality - I felt like a complete and total failure. In fact, when I first started writing this piece… my plan was to take a picture in my beautiful office in the house I no longer live in of how I imagined I would be as a “blogger” …. the picture never was taken… only the complete and total chaos photo (naturally).

This was and still is the reality……

Life is chaos, it will be chaos forever, and the truth of that matter of it is this; I have 4 young children, a traveling husband in the Army, therapy appointments, online businesses, cheerleading practices, emails, a baby, and we are literally in limbo living at my parents house while we finish school in Texas before actually starting our next chapter in Virginia. That doesn’t fit into some pretty office. And I’m ok with it.

The reality is - time is a commodity and we prioritize what is important to us. We make room in our otherwise chaotic days to spend time where we WANT to. No one has the luxury of time, I think we have all learned that this last year, but we do have the luxury of deciding where our time is spent. I should have never let my expectations of putting all the love, encouragement, stories, reflections, in my head on the back burner because I couldn’t run the perfect blog. Comparison is the thief of joy and pain (as I always say). What I needed to do was adjust my expectations to my reality and then choose to make it a priority.

So as we shift into spring, I hope to readjust, make room for this space, and continue writing the way I always wanted to, freely, with zero expectations other than sharing my experiences so others may not feel so alone. And my advise to you that you didn’t ask for? Give yourself some grace. Your dreams, your goals, your expectations may not always fit into your reality, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop chasing them,…. it simply means you have to chase them differently.

Cheers friends, I am looking forward to hopefully writing more, and continuing to create conversations about all the hard things.

xoxo,

Melissa (in a lot of freaking chaos)