Everybody makes mistakes.

Everybody makes mistakes.

But everybody doesn't have to print 1,500 copies of them 52 times a year, only to be repeatedly eviscerated by people who seem to really enjoy forgetting that we are fallible humans ... you know, just like EVERYONE ELSE ON THIS PLANET.

The upside: we discovered we can beat the fuck out of ourselves emotionally wayyyyy better than shitty meme comments ever will.

But enough about that. It's the nature of the beast, and I'm going to be okay with it or I'm going to turn into a shriveled shell of a human.

This post is supposed to be about a coping mechanism/thought pattern I've developed over the past year that is maybe healthy, maybe not.

It goes something like this:
You made a mistake? Oh well, it won't matter cuz YOU'RE GONNA TO DIE! MAYBE TOMORROW! MAYBE IN THREE SECONDS!

Someone is pissed at you? Oh well! You'll die eventually, and so will they! *throws confetti*

You made the wrong choice? Don't worry! You're nothing but a compostable meat sack with a super computer in your skull and eventually it will all be meaningless!

I'm on a constant mental merry-go-round of "Does this matter? Really?"

There are things that do, absolutely. But most of the time? The answer is a great big NOPE.

Maybe it's a macabre expression of the perspective you gain when someone you love drops dead.

Maybe it's a side effect of trying to deal with the first holiday season after the shock has worn off. (People say shock is bad. I disagree. Shock is a wonderful insulator during the first few months.)

Maybe people are just the fucking worst.

Or maybe I'm turning into a nihilist. (Not necessarily a bad thing. They have a lot of great points.)

From this excellent excerpt: https://medium.com/@mitpress/what-is-nihilism-and-does-it-matter-2041cca426c1

All I know is, at the end of the day, this current stupidity will soon be swept up in bigger, newer, shinier stupidity.

Maybe ours, maybe someone else's.

And will any of it matter in the end? Absofuckinglutely not.

(Somebody please tell this to my feelings, who apparently still think that if you try to be kind and do good, people *won't* treat you like garbage, gossip about you behind your back, or straight up stab you in the eye. Hypothesis WILDLY incorrect, y'all.)

It's maybe not happiest perspective, but I'm pretty sure it's keeping me trekking. So, cheers to that.

You don't have to die on the hill of motherhood.

Brought to you by this meme from my newsfeed this morning (are we still calling it a newsfeed, Facebook, or have we all just agreed to start calling it the brainwashing station?)



Now the comments on the original post, as you can imagine, are fulllllll of mom shaming.

"HOW DARE YOU NOT LET THOSE PRECIOUS NUGGETS ENJOY. THOSE. MEMORIES!" 

"My Christmas would have been so much better if my mother would have wanted to share that experience with us *insert sad violins*."

I feel like this is a symptom of the whole idea that when you become a mother, it is *supposed* to eclipse the rest of your identity. And that's certainly what it feels like when you've got a newborn attached to your boob 24/7, or a toddler (or three toddlers, like we did because we're nuts) whose sole mission in life is to swallow as much sand as possible and jump off things that are entirely too high.

But I don't think that's healthy. Like, at all. It's created an entire generation of self-entitled brats whose helicopter/lawnmower/tiger/whatever other descriptor mommies hover over their high school (YES, HIGH SCHOOL) teachers and coaches and bosses and step right in when they feel their precious snowflakes are not being properly cared for.

What the actual fuck, society.

(Obvious disclaimer, it's not the *entire* generation, lest I go reverse #okboomer status.)

So if you don't give a rat's ass about your tree arrangement, good for you. And if you need to have separate trees for everyone in the house so you can hold on to some small semblance of sanity in a world that is 99.99999% uncontrollable, go for it.

You are a mother. It's beautiful and wonderful. And it's not all you are.