.SOMETIMES RAW.

My son asked me the other day, “Mommy, when will I be a grown-up?” “Very soon, my love because time flies,” I responded. This small conversation made me think. Maybe the issue was that there is a direction. Up. One cannot simply grow, one must grow up. Along with pencil notches on a door frame and candles on a cake, your ferocity, wisdom, and velocity must increase as you age.

Anyone who has reached adulthood knows that growth does not progress like a ticking clock. It usually means horrible missteps and innocence lost, betrayal, disappointment and broken zippers. It moves backward, inwards, sideways, finding new ways to humble us. Doesn’t growth most often feel only good in hindsight? Like running a marathon through the five stages of grief. Sometimes it doubles back on itself many times before it emerges as something remotely useful. Then, of course, we may forget what it taught us and repeat the same mistakes. Move back home, get lost, find ourselves again, get lost again, meet new people, get lost again, but be better for it. Ad infinitum.

We all know this chart and intellectuality it entails, right?

But it is different from knowing it in our bones. And aligning our senses of self to the inalienable truth that progress often means making a huge, disastrous mess first. #storyofmylife. Let’s dive into the complicated pool of human progress a bit: Growing up. Can you grow down? Laterally? Literally? In relationship and partner choices, I know of at least one example for sure. Can you regress and then grow as a direct result of that regression? Or can you grow in a bad way? In the wrong way? Can you grow by learning, and then grow again by unlearning what you learned the first time?

I told my son the other day that I don’t want to sound like a deflated balloon, but adulthood is exhausting. He just looked at me and proudly told me that he washed my new sweater in the little pond so I don’t have to wash it anymore. Now that I am here on this earth for quite some time as a fully formed adult who subscribes to The New Yorker, reads the Süddeutsche Zeitung and moves around to figure out where the best place to live is one might think I have it all figured out.

These days, life is awesome but a couple of weeks ago it was rather tedious and my happiness tended to look a lot more like contentment rather than non-stop joy. It is a constant up and down but this is okay. I could throw caution to the wind and hop on the hedonistic hamster-wheel of chasing perpetual youth, but honestly, that sounds exhausting, kind of expensive and I rather spend my afternoon in a hammock reading a good book to find perpetual inner peace. So in the interest of gratitude and thoughtful living and what have you, I am trying not to take adulthood for granted and will share a handful of things that make me feel blissful, like a full-on adult. These are little moments where life turned out exactly as I once thought it would.

Balancing groceries on my hip as I get my mail out of the mailbox. It is just something about this balancing act that is life just feels so satisfying. Little victories. And never walk twice.

Eating Chinese food straight from the container.

When I lived in New York City, eating Lo Mein out of a paper container felt like the height of working woman sophistication to me. There was this certain grace of giving myself not even a plate feels which felt like an indulgence. There is of course no moral value one way or another on eating Chinese take out, but something about the image of a woman alone on her couch, watching crap TV, eating takeout feels to me like a deep exhalation.

Standing in the aisle of a drug store comparing two toilet cleaners. Nothing says I have my shit together quite like taking my time to form opinions on toilet bowl cleaners.

Making chicken soup (any other soup) from scratch. Or actually cooking anything at home because it tastes so much better.

Unceremoniously stop jogging when I have had enough and to simply walk home. It is totally fine. No judgments. Not even the guy you just passed who challenged himself to squat deeper than he did the week before. He also trains for the Iron Man. I will do my thing. I used to train harder, run faster but in the long-run, all this nonsense did nothing for me but gave me pain.

Safety. If I knew what safety looked like, I would have spent less time falling into arms that were not. I know now. The key: Love yourself first. Unconditionally.

Chill in a hammock for a couple of hours and read. You are your own soulmate. Don’t mistake salt for sugar. If he wants to be with you, he will. It is that simple.

Don’t we all know that perfection is a condition experienced by many, exasperated by social media, and just causes frustration, procrastination, low self-esteem? If left untreated, it may lead to sadness, lack of purpose, and constant questioning featuring too many what-ifs?

I’ll do this after I do that. I’ll get to it once this happens. I can’t start this until this is perfect. Many times perfection got in my way of starting or doing something new. I used to think if I cannot do it perfectly or under the perfect circumstances, I simply do not see the point.

Perfection has made me procrastinate the bigger things like for example moving back to Germany, re-designing my blog, writing a business proposal, choosing a daily meditation to practice or the smaller things like planning my day off. Sometimes if I could not decide on the perfect plan for my day off, I would just end up staying at home or running errands instead of doing something awesome.

Everyone defines perfect differently and we all have varying levels of personal standards of perfection. I personally believe and think it is fair to say that perfection is an illusion just as social media is an illusion. It is mostly curated, edited, airbrushed montage of just a tiny facet of someone’s life. So, based on this concept, that perfection is an illusion, perfection does not exist. Sometimes people, and I include myself here, get caught up in living in a non-reality when life usually revolves mainly around the superficial things like status, money, job or to-do lists. Living in reality means connection with others, accepting myself the way I am, and feeling emotions; even the dark ones.

Progress over perfection.

The right moment may never come but sometimes it is important to just do what feels right even though it is not perfect. When I chose to make progress, move forward, and take action, that’s when I achieved my goals. It is simply letting the walls of perfection fall to reveal something so pure and unique to me. It is also about loving and believing in myself enough to trust that whatever I create is not perfect but it is real. And my best self is created from this space of honesty.

It is very easy to get caught up in the comparison of what everyone else is doing and then need to feel accepted. But what actually happens is everyone does the same thing and the perfection bug actually causes repetition. Many of my friends had to listen to me talking about moving to a particular city for months now but I wanted it to be perfect. Then I got to the point where I had to just take action and go or I would be waiting forever. This move won’t be that easy but manageable. I don’t think no major move really is but this experience will teach me to live here and now, and to actually do the things I talk about doing someday. Simply because, like perfection, someday does not actually exist. So, I signed the lease to my new apartment. It felt good to finally do it. Once it was all done, the pressure was off and having done it, I now feel inspired to finish it off.

The next time you are about to put off anything because you are scared it won’t be perfect, remember that progress is more important than perfection. It is okay to clean my kitchen just a little bit, let my dad work on my new vintage furniture because he knows what he is doing, apply for that Ph.D. without re-reading the application fifty-thousand times. Oh, and starting my new essay can wait as well as the laundry because I have to catch up with a very good friend who wants to make pizza with arugula, Proscuitto, and cheese. I will get a bottle of wine. I promised, didn’t I? Just be imperfectly you.

Is it just me or does it feel like advice is given everywhere? We get bombarded with unsolicited, desperate requests from books we read, shows we watch, people we choose to surround ourselves with and the list goes on. One thing is for sure: everyone has some advice to give. But, just because it is there, does not always mean it is good, no? At the end of the day, we like to believe that advice is all about experience and one person sharing their downfalls, big wins or everything in between in hopes of someone else’s situation ending differently. If your heart is in the right place to receive advice it is usually something beneficial and beautiful to be taken away instead of an annoying feeling like shooing away a mosquito. Since everybody does it and this is my blog and creative outlet I would like to share some good advice that I received and is helpful in my life. Maybe there is something for you to take away, too. Also, check out this post.

Someone told me that changing your mind is the cheapest form of therapy.

This someone also told me that: You are too smart to be with certain men.

Here is a random picture for entertainment purposes. Do you like it? Nope? It doesn’t impress me either.

If you have the feeling that your partner is too arrogant, smokes too much weed, is too full of themselves, and extremely paranoid trust your gut and run away as fast as you can. It doesn’t matter what a person tells you, it’s their actions that prove who they really are. Don’t base your trust and expectations on people’s words. Ever.

I was born empathetic; maybe too empathetic. I always had a shoulder, an ear, a heart for anyone and everyone. I listened and didn’t judge, giving without ever expecting anything in return. This worked for decades, and somehow I was this happy, everlasting altruist. The thing is: when you accept the role to take on negativity, it takes its toll after a while. In moments, when I needed peace, others didn’t put me first because they had been used to me putting myself second. This is when I taught myself to protect my peace. Sounds simple enough, but it’s leading my mission in life now. I have learned the beauty of saying no, of choosing what I let affect me and knowing that it is my responsibility to put me first because I am the only me I will ever have. And, by way of ‘protecting my peace’, I have let go of some friendships, ended relationships, and quit jobs.

You are doing the best you can. Sometimes this little reminder puts things in perspective when I am being too hard on myself of feel like I could be doing more to change a situation. In reality, I am simply doing the best I can in a challenging time. No more, no less.

Keep doing the right things and you will get the results. This one is so important when you try to achieve something challenging and it takes longer than you expected to get to your goal. If I keep doing what works, consistently, eventually I will get the results.

Don’t try to read what people think. Simply ask.

Don’t get married. Totally unnecessary.

No iPad Air mini 2 with wifi and SIM card is ever necessary to communicate with someone you love.

Need to make a tough decision? Trust your gut. If you ever find yourself in a place where you cannot hear it then sit in silence and write a list of pros and cons until the answer becomes so obvious that you cannot ignore it. Take time with yourself and make sure that your mind and body are always connected. This is the most important relationship.

The obvious: Never drink alcohol on an empty stomach; wear sun protection every singe day, and never go to bed without taking your makeup off. And, you cannot expect anyone to love you the way you deserve, the way you want to be loved, if you cannot love yourself first. I know how corny and obvious this sounds, but I am amazed how people try to bypass that very simple, yet essential rule of the universe. Self-love isn’t something you can fake with diets, expensive shopping habits, a relationship or a few face masks a week. Whatever blocks and resistances you refuse to face, whatever beliefs you have come to develop about yourself, will without a doubt manifest themselves into your current relationship, for better or worse. Get to know yourself independently of the people in your life. Accept and forgive whatever invisible grudges on yourself you may have accumulated over the years and understand that you are whole, all on your own.