an we be real for a minute? Like, really real? The kind of real usually only reserved for that friend you can text hilarious but slightly inappropriate parenting memes to (the ones you can’t share on Facebook lest people question your parenting skills, but that are in fact, hilarious)?

The type of real reserved for the friend you can tell anything – even your embarrassing stories, your deepest fears, and your secret dreams? Yeah, that kind of real.

You in? Okay, pull up a seat on my proverbial front porch, get comfy and let’s talk. Overachiever to overachiever. Personal development junkie to personal development junkie…

This shit is hard! All of it. [gestures vaguely]

We’ve been given the herculean task of trying to simultaneously:

• Crush it at work;
• Raise brilliant, kind, well-rounded humans;
• Be an amazing, loving, partner;
• Give back to the community;
• Have a social life and stay in touch with friends and family;
• Manage our homes and all that entails;
• Organize and execute plans with military precision so that all the kids can make all of their sports and activities, do their homework, and…what?! They need to be fed AGAIN!? Frick.
• And not completely lose our minds in the process.

Oh, and here’s a multi-year pandemic while you’re at it, you know, just to make life more interesting. May the odds be ever in your favor!

But don’t you dare let anyone see you struggling! Be a giver not a taker. Pull up your big girl panties and get the job done and look good doing it. The contradictions and sky-high expectations never end.

It’s a lot and we struggle because we’re human. So what do we do?

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