Put down the Haterade

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed this morning and I came across this article.  Now, I don't know who this guy is and from what I can gather from his other blog posts, I don't agree with everything he writes, but this particular post may resonated with me so loudly that I was like, Holy cow, I get this.  I like being stopped in my tracks like that because it's not often that my brain gets a workout and I get to critically think about things other than parenting.  

I read his open letter to the haters of the world and I found myself nodding my head in that 'hell yeah!  Preach!' kind of way.  We've all had personal experience with haters; it's human nature.  Competition is not entirely evil and exercise is a great example.  I push myself harder in a group than I ever would alone and that's not a bad thing.  Unfortunately, competition and its darker cousin, comparison can become a slippery slope and the haters lay along that path, just waiting to kick you while you're down. 

When I was young, the haters hated my light skin and long hair.  As I got older, it was my weight (among other things.)  Obviously I eat lettuce and air every day, because there's no other way that I'm 37 years old and 120 pounds at nearly six months pregnant.  Obviously I don't care about my health or my unborn child's health, otherwise I wouldn't be so skinny.  Obviously I have good genes and I'm just lucky because there's no other explanation for my body.  Obviously if you too ate lettuce and air, had good genes and didn't care about your health, you could look like me.  I'm supposed to laugh and shrug it off when you call me a skinny bitch.  Because you know, I'm being skinny at you.  (Btw, here's the original article about that if you'd like to read it.)

Sometimes, I will seek to make myself more accessible and point out all my jillions of flaws in response, as if to make up for something that does come to me naturally, but I work for it too. Well yeah I'm thin, but I have crippling anxiety; I have no trouble finding clothes but I'm plagued with daily self-doubt about almost everything; I never worry about my body image but let me tell you about the ten thousand other things I worry about.  It's a drag, especially when I feel like I'm apologizing unnecessarily.   Why in the world should any of us apologize for our good fortune, ever?  But we do, and it's only ever to make the haters feel better.  What kind of sense does that make? 

Yet we've all done it; we've all apologized for our successes at some point in time.  We've all taken self-deprecation too far in the name of making someone else feel better and it's often at our expense.  We minimize our own greatness because somehow, somewhere we came to believe that it's not polite to be proud of ourselves.  (There's a poem about being great and one of the lines says 'Who are you to live small?  You're extraordinary and it's your duty to shine your light' or something like that.  I wish I could remember that poem right now.)  How many of us can receive compliments without squirming or saying 'oh it was nothing' in an almost knee-jerk fashion?

Hearing about someone being picked on for their appearance really spoke to me and got me thinking 'You know, haters really suck.'

In my opinion, haters suck so much because they get vile and vicious without warning and for no reason.  In the case of the fit mom, the haters were like 'Well she obviously doesn't take care of her kids because that's the only way she can look like that.  She obviously has nannies and a personal chef and an independently wealthy husband because there's no other way to get abs like that.'

The most dangerous part of that is that none of that is true.  But haters don't care about the truth because they have their emotions and if that's how you feel then that's how it is.  Talk about a slippery slope, because emotions are important and vital to life, but making emotions and truth interchangeable is a dangerous game to play.

Emotions are easy.  They require no accountability and whatever you feel is your truth.  But that's the thing - it's your truth, not *the* truth.    For me, *the* truth is only that which can be proven.  If you feel like someone doesn't like you, that's your truth.  If that person pulls you aside and says directly to you "I don't like you" that's *the* truth.

However, your truth isn't completely invalid.  It's actually quite useful, in the same way that an animal's hair stands up on its back and it's ears perk up because it senses a predator is near.  You should never discount your intuition and it's never a good thing to talk yourself out of a gut feeling.  You just have to be careful that you don't live your life thinking there's a predator around every corner.  No animal can live in a constant state of stress and you miss out on a lot of good things if you live like everyone's out to get you.

I try to live that lesson every day, especially when I feel myself falling under the influence of the Haterade.  I see these moms on Facebook posting about their girls' night outs or the five-mile run they just completed and I'm like Well yeah, if I had family next door to babysit for free I could do that too.  

And then I stop myself cold, reminding myself that I'm not the only one with no family nearby.  I've received emails from you, my beautiful readers, who have no family or whose family is in another country and you're all living life, making it happen and I have no choice but to stop feeling sorry for myself.  I don't get out and do things because *I* make that choice.  Not every babysitter is a child molester in disguise and I have to stop being held hostage by my fear.  I could go on a five-mile run if I really wanted to, although let's get one thing straight:  I don't want to.

  A little humor before it gets too serious around here.

Matt Walsh says he loves his haters.  He's a better man than I am; I have no love for someone who hates me.  I'm human, not Jesus.  I try my hardest not to waste my precious life-force apologizing for my good fortune or trying to make my haters love me and I really hope that awesomely fit mom holds her head high and lives life with no apologies.  

We give our haters too much power; we let them tell us how we should live by letting them make us feel bad for our choices.  That is bullshit.

Some people climb the mountains. Some people stand at the base and hope the climbers hit a loose rock and fall to their deaths. You seem to be in the latter group. Fine, you’re safe down there on the ground. It’s just that you’re not really alive, either.  source

That quote resonated with me the most.  Climbing a mountain is hard work and it's perfectly acceptable to do without smiling the entire way, as long as you keep going.  The haters will point at you and say See!  You're bitching about how hard it is!  Obviously, you don't like what you're doing and you're just showing off and you're a terrible person.  It's especially true if any mother ever dares complain about parenting in any way.  Obviously you don't care about your kids/you're doing something wrong/you're not strong enough, otherwise you wouldn't complain/it wouldn't be so hard.

The haters miss the fact that they're hollering at you from the ground, while you're getting closer and closer to the top and the view when you get there is going to be so worth it that the haters will hopefully be drowned out by all the magnificence and beauty.

Something like this.

This is what I see at the top of my mountain.

I may curse and cry along the way, but I will put one foot in front of the other

until the end of my days for this.

You're at the top of my mountain too, New Baby!

Also, I need some new belly pictures because this one is from 13-14 weeks.

I can't believe I'm 22 weeks already; this pregnancy is going by so fast!

I've let haters get to me way too often about way too much.  However, I have a renewed sense of commitment, spurred on by that mom who was being awesome at me in the best possible way.  She's no superwoman, she has the same 24 hours I do.  While I don't have her same goals, I can set and reach my own even if they're as simple as I'm not going to let the haters bring me down today.

Haters are poisonous scary people and if you come across one, take heed.  If your hair stands up on the back of your neck, that's real.  Give them a wide berth, don't try and make them love you, and if you're a better person than me, say a little prayer for them that they find peace.

And if you find yourself under the influence of the Haterade, just stop.  Recognize that comparison and competition are normal human emotions and you don't have to be ruled by them.  Your feelings matter, just know the difference between your truth and *the* truth.

I'm going to be awesome today and although I'm not I'm under direct attack from any haters in the present moment, I'm not going to let them bring me down should any of them rear their ugly poisonous tiny heads.  I'm an awesome person and I'm about to go change my daughter's diaper - awesomely.  Then I might play blocks with her - like a BOSS.  After that, I'll feed her - like a PRO.  

You AND me.  We're awesome.  Don't let the haters tell you different.