When I was in high school, you were NOBODY if you weren’t passing around 15-20 handwritten notes, folded up into intricate oragami-esque squares to all of your besties and current crushes throughout each school day. We didn’t have smart phones or texting at this point, so apparently I am as old as a rock. Most of the content in these notes was absolutely pointless conversation, usually about music or weekend plans or gossip going around the school, you know... all the stressful, pressing topics for 14 year old girls in the early 2000’s. Life is funny because I vividly remember hating high school my freshman year, and sitting on my parents bed sobbing because I felt like I had “no friends” and I wanted them to transfer me to a different school. I sit here at 30, writing this blog post, dying to have that problem once again.
No friends... no commitments to birthday parties, bridal showers, baby sprinkles, graduations, etc. To have the luxury of living my own schedule, to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And what I want to do at the end of most days is snuggle at home with my dogs and my boyfriend and watch Netflix, which undoubtly turns into me snoring on the couch within the first 15 minutes of a show, leaving the dogs and the boyfriend to snuggle themselves.
In high school, I remember passing notes with one of my guy friends one day, opening the 4th in the chain for the day, and reading a sentence that I probably won’t forget for the rest of my life. Two words.
“You’re boring.”
I was mortified. I was hurt. I was a pissed off teenage girl. This was my friend, telling ME... loud, silly, carefree, extroverted, original, 15 year old Nicole that I AM BORING. I wasn’t even interested in this guy, but I suddenly took a huge blow to my self esteem. I wasn’t ever the head cheerleader type in high school. I never even had a true-lasts-more-than-two-weeks boyfriend until I was in my 20’s. If news got out that I was boring, I’d be ruined, no chance, missing out on all great things in life that would have come around my way otherwise. I think from that point on, for awhile in my life at least, I doubled my efforts to appear to others as some kind of untamable wild thing.... rare and unique and unlike any other girl they had met before. Writing this makes me a bit sad.
Why is being “simple” frowned upon? Remove the word “boring” from the equation. How many times do you see a post on social media of a friend who has traveled to Iceland or Croatia and think to yourself, “Wow, that person is really living their BEST life. Why am I not doing that? Why is my life so dull and mundane?”
I was mowing my lawn the other day, and along my fence line I noticed a string of baby strawberries growing out of nowhere. Any other day, I probably would have just continued on, in attempts to get through that days chores as quickly as possible. But for some reason, I stopped this day. The strawberries amazed me. They were perfect. None of my neighbors grow strawberries, I’ve never attempted to grow strawberries, and yet here they were. Tiny edible rubies growing out of nowhere.
My point is, how many times are we too busy being nearly-literal robots, staring down at a screen complaining about how boring our life is, that we forget how many beautiful, unique, and one-of-kind things we are surrounded by on a day to day basis? Or we are just too “programmed” in our ways to realize we are living a self inflicted blind life to extraordinary beauty we can discover if we just open our eyes. Teach your children the difference between a "want" and a "need". Understand yourself that all which glitters is not gold, and Instagram and Facebook are not a means to judge the happiness in a person's life. If simplicity brings you peace, bring more simplicity in and rid yourself of the frills.
If someone sees the life I’m living as “boring”, I’m ok with that. My dog is extraordinary to me. I see God in him every day, when I wake up and go to sleep. My boyfriend is the soul I never thought could still exist in this world, and our journey of how we have become a “boring” couple never ceases to bring tears to my eyes as I drive down the road listening to a “boring” song that makes me think about us. My house is small. My life is small. My job isn’t to save lives everyday. Does this make me inadequate or unworthy of happiness? No. I have been humbled in ways that I wish most people in this day and age could experience at least once in their life times. Being humbled makes you realize what matters and what doesn’t. So if I never get to visit Croatia, fine. At least I’ll still have some fresh wild strawberries that I can enjoy on a lazy Sunday afternoon in small town Ohio.
No friends... no commitments to birthday parties, bridal showers, baby sprinkles, graduations, etc. To have the luxury of living my own schedule, to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And what I want to do at the end of most days is snuggle at home with my dogs and my boyfriend and watch Netflix, which undoubtly turns into me snoring on the couch within the first 15 minutes of a show, leaving the dogs and the boyfriend to snuggle themselves.
In high school, I remember passing notes with one of my guy friends one day, opening the 4th in the chain for the day, and reading a sentence that I probably won’t forget for the rest of my life. Two words.
“You’re boring.”
I was mortified. I was hurt. I was a pissed off teenage girl. This was my friend, telling ME... loud, silly, carefree, extroverted, original, 15 year old Nicole that I AM BORING. I wasn’t even interested in this guy, but I suddenly took a huge blow to my self esteem. I wasn’t ever the head cheerleader type in high school. I never even had a true-lasts-more-than-two-weeks boyfriend until I was in my 20’s. If news got out that I was boring, I’d be ruined, no chance, missing out on all great things in life that would have come around my way otherwise. I think from that point on, for awhile in my life at least, I doubled my efforts to appear to others as some kind of untamable wild thing.... rare and unique and unlike any other girl they had met before. Writing this makes me a bit sad.
Why is being “simple” frowned upon? Remove the word “boring” from the equation. How many times do you see a post on social media of a friend who has traveled to Iceland or Croatia and think to yourself, “Wow, that person is really living their BEST life. Why am I not doing that? Why is my life so dull and mundane?”
I was mowing my lawn the other day, and along my fence line I noticed a string of baby strawberries growing out of nowhere. Any other day, I probably would have just continued on, in attempts to get through that days chores as quickly as possible. But for some reason, I stopped this day. The strawberries amazed me. They were perfect. None of my neighbors grow strawberries, I’ve never attempted to grow strawberries, and yet here they were. Tiny edible rubies growing out of nowhere.
My point is, how many times are we too busy being nearly-literal robots, staring down at a screen complaining about how boring our life is, that we forget how many beautiful, unique, and one-of-kind things we are surrounded by on a day to day basis? Or we are just too “programmed” in our ways to realize we are living a self inflicted blind life to extraordinary beauty we can discover if we just open our eyes. Teach your children the difference between a "want" and a "need". Understand yourself that all which glitters is not gold, and Instagram and Facebook are not a means to judge the happiness in a person's life. If simplicity brings you peace, bring more simplicity in and rid yourself of the frills.
If someone sees the life I’m living as “boring”, I’m ok with that. My dog is extraordinary to me. I see God in him every day, when I wake up and go to sleep. My boyfriend is the soul I never thought could still exist in this world, and our journey of how we have become a “boring” couple never ceases to bring tears to my eyes as I drive down the road listening to a “boring” song that makes me think about us. My house is small. My life is small. My job isn’t to save lives everyday. Does this make me inadequate or unworthy of happiness? No. I have been humbled in ways that I wish most people in this day and age could experience at least once in their life times. Being humbled makes you realize what matters and what doesn’t. So if I never get to visit Croatia, fine. At least I’ll still have some fresh wild strawberries that I can enjoy on a lazy Sunday afternoon in small town Ohio.
