…and shows your heart how thankful you are that you didn’t get it.

The thing about Hallmark movies or Romantic Comedies is they are not real.

THEY ARE NOT REAL LIFE.

Let me say it one more time: “THEY ARE NOT REAL LIFE!”

Sometimes, you look at life and look at Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast or You’ve got Mail and say, “You lied to me!”

I’m not a big C.S. Lewis fan, but I do like this quote by him, “Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

Isn’t that the truth.  Growing up I had this ideal view of life.  I saw it all through rose colored glasses and Disney channel.  I could watch Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail over and over and over and never tire of them.

“Now those were the days when people knew how to be in love.”
“You’re a basket case.”
“They knew it!  Time, distance… nothing could separate them because they *knew*.  It was right, it was real, it was…
“A movie! That’s your problem. You don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie.” – Sleepless in Seattle

That is one of my all time favorite movie lines.

Well, she got me there!  I eventually had to ban myself from watching Hallmark channel and movies because they would just make me angry.  I would end up yelling at the TV.  Sometimes you just need to step back and realize you’re going through some stuff.  I watched action for a while.

These movies and TV shows idolize the characters.  They make it look like once you find the man or woman of your dreams your life will be perfect.  It says life doesn’t begin until you have found your life partner.  Whew!  What a web of deception.

LIVE YO LIFE, FRIEND!  Life is happening NOW!

Social media doesn’t help because you just see people’s highlights.  You only see the good and rarely does anyone post the struggles.  Why would anyone want their peers to know that they couldn’t pay that bill because they just lost a job or this one is in the hospital or that they just had a huge fight with their husband.  Instead they post a picture of themselves “out with the girls” but not explaining that the behind the scenes could be that they are not speaking to their spouse.  That wonderful night out is a way of running and actually not as glamorous as it appears.  I’ve read all kinds of articles about social media and depression and I get it.  Your real life isn’t living up to the hype of one person’s post.  You’re stuck at home doing something mundane, or what you think is mundane, when you should be out living life.  It’s the comparison trap.

That’s why God says not to be envious.  He gave you your own life.  We should be thankful wherever we are.

This blog started as a food blog.  I didn’t know what I would do with it, but I loved taking pictures of food.  I’m a homebody.  Baking and pictures were kind of perfect for me.  I baked and sold things on the side while taking care of my grandma.  It was my second job.  I started looking at ways to expand by looking at renting out kitchens and how to get a permit.  I was reading books about starting a business and the different kinds of LLCs.

That’s how I spent the last few months of taking care of my grandma.  I had my little routine.  I’d come home and do this…. do that… I was finally going in the right direction.

In January this year my grandma died.  Coincidentally, it is now a couple days from July and I haven’t baked anything since then.  Maybe I will wake up one day and want to bake again.  I’m not sure.  I was so freaked out at the time about what I would do with my time because I would come home from work to take care of my grandma and sometimes bake that I wasn’t sure how to be by myself.  I wasn’t up to taking orders or being home and could finally do whatever I wanted.  After a few weeks of that I almost got a second job.  I prayed about it and as I was praying one morning one of my favorite members walked in, looked at me, and said, “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

He had no idea what I was struggling with, but I just said…”Ok!”

An old friend of mine started her own bakery recently.  I went to visit yesterday after not really speaking to each other in years.  We just kind of went our separate ways.  Anyway, when I saw her it was like we were never apart.  She was telling me how stressed she was and about her business.  I shared some of my baking woes and orders and we just laughed together.  Sometimes, you just have to have someone who understands how ridiculous you can be.  She started out of her house and the bigger business I’m sure overwhelmed her.

I told her, “One time I threw away an entire cake and had to start over.  I had gotten myself so worked up I saw someone I knew in Walmart and just started crying.  #peopleofwalmart.”

When I got home and was telling my dad all of this he just said, “Look how God protected you from that stress.”

Sometimes, I wonder why I stopped baking and instead spend hours in my little butterfly garden, but it is what I’m supposed to be doing right now.

“God, is this really what I’m supposed to be doing?”

Running your own business is hard work.  It’s not glamorous.  People may see the outside perspective and “freedom” of running your own company, but they don’t see the sleepless nights and hard work that goes on behind the scenes of it.  They don’t see the scrambling or the panic attacks or the crying episodes in Walmart because you think you baked your cake wrong.

While I haven’t baked anything twice this week I ran into two different “bakers” and talked to them like it was nothing and we were laughing and sharing ways of how we make different things.

You can plan all you want, but sometimes God says “Drop it” and you end up somewhere completely different.

Sometimes, God lets you look at the life you almost had and be thankful He had you walk away and going somewhere else.