The View from Here

Early each morning before I rise from bed, a snoring Marley curled up next to me, I religiously post three memes, perhaps with nauseating regularity for the people who are subjected to my typically happy-fied Facebook page. My nickname isn’t Poppins for nothing…Two of the memes are meant to encourage or inspire, the third is to hopefully make people smile, or even better yet- spit out their morning coffee.

Choosing the memes is a meditation of sorts to me and I take it seriously. There might be a theme; holidays, major events, something that I’m dealing with personally, or whatever. I go to Pinterest before I fall asleep and get lost in a sea of memes, searching for those that speak to me, something that I hope will speak to someone else, too. In the sea of negativity out there on social media, I’m doing my best to post things that will uplift people or at least make them stop and think.

I had to laugh when after posting about an epically rough day a while back, someone commented that “wow-we all think you live a perfect life.” Huh. Perfect. Well, I am grateful to say that I do have a pretty amazing life (I paid my dues, believe me), but perfect? Honestly, just the thought of a perfect life gives me severe anxiety. I like the messiness of real life, the humanness. Perfection robs us of our humanity and our joy, because we struggle and struggle, but we can never attain it. And boy, oh, boy, am I human.

What I want understood is that I post these memes because they express areas of my life or myself that I am working on- not some attempt whitewash reality or to preach to the world or make it seem like I’m that awful perfect word. I am so very far from perfect, riddled as I am with insecurities and flaws. I am simply trying to learn and grow, one meme at a time, allowing the meme to open me up new ways of thinking about things and possibly new goals to attain to help me become a better human.

The memes are there to inspire, to make us see different perspectives, to encourage us through difficult times or celebrate joyful ones. They won’t fix the world, and unless you really take the time to think about what the memes represent, they can appear to be shallow and useless. For me, they are just the jumping off place for reflection in my continual search for self-improvement.