I shared the above meme on Facebook yesterday after it came across my feed, thinking about all the women I see on Instagram posting their glowing glamour pics mid-workout from the gym. I cringe inside posting the picture of myself post-workout above. I uploaded it to Instagram earlier today, my proof that I held myself accountable in my promise to exercise today.
But it is more than proof.
A decade ago, emerging from a relationship-gone-bad which I had portrayed as utopian to everyone and everyone, I made myself a promise. I promised that I would never again try to make my life appear perfect to everyone on the internet. As a perfectionist, I was hyper-attuned to all of the “perfect” lives I “saw” in peoples’ blogs, webpages, and chat conversations. I, too, had to be “perfect”. As my confirmedly UN-perfect relationship crumbled around me, I realized that I was perhaps creating the same kind of pressure for other people that I felt.
And so it all went out the door. Friends, family, and even strangers see a fuller, more accurate picture of my life, warts and all. I tell the funny stories about my kids painting their room in poop as well as confess when I feel like a terrible mother who is failing my two beautiful monsters.
My life isn’t perfect. My marriage isn’t perfect. My home is often a mess (even when I haven’t just moved). My toddlers are sometimes demons…and I sometimes don’t have nearly as much patience with them as I should.
And after I work out? My hair is frizzy, my face is red and blotchy, my pits stink, my t-shirt is wet with sweat, and I am anything but hot and glamourous. And that’s okay, because at least I got myself to do it today, right?
I got up, drank my keto coffee, made the girls breakfast and packed them a snack, and brought us all to the gym. I dropped them off at the youth activity center, and did 30 minutes of lifting with the hubby before an hour and fifteen minutes on the treadmill. AND, I drank some water today!
I don’t enjoy exercise, other than yoga. I do this because I need to, and because I feel better about myself when I do it. I do it because I deserve to have a body in which I am comfortable again, and because my body has way more aches and pains when I don’t.
This is already longer than I was planning. I need to get my butt in bed, as the 5:00 AM alarm is gonna be rough tomorrow when it wakes me to get in gear and get out to the U-Pik farm. Fresh produce for freezing and canning, here I come!
What did you do for yourself today?
The Feminist Farmwife 
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