"you'd be so pretty if..."

mediocrity.

that is a word i'm well familiar with. in fact it is a word i embrace.

embrace you say? who embraces mediocrity? who even admits to mediocrity?

well, let me tell you. the kind of person who is honest with themselves.

above all things, i try to be honest with myself. i probably spend a lot of time ignoring that honesty, but at some point i've looked in the mirror and said "wow, you're plain." or i've admitted to myself i'm not as smart as i'd like to think i am. or i've realized i don't know what i'm doing in my life most of the time. and guess what? not too long ago i had what i hear professionals call 'a moment of clarity.'

i don't care about being attractive. i don't want to be considered ugly, but i don't care enough about my appearance to go through the motions of putting on make up and doing more to my hair than washing it. a lot of people in my life have said to me 'you'd look so pretty if you'd only wear some makeup and do your hair.' i don't want to be pretty because society has convinced us spending an hour in the bathroom with a blow dyer, flat iron and hundreds of dollars worth of product everyday makes us pretty. 'you'd look so pretty if...' is the same kind of statement as 'she's so pretty...too bad she's so fat.' it is possible to be pretty and nude of face and hair products. and i don't even strive for pretty, i strive for passable. i'm a-ok with being the pretty one's friend. it works out as the guys i'm most attracted too are the good-looking guys buddy. means i get to spend a lot of time talking to the more relaxed, intelligent guys. too bad they're hoping to go home with my friends too.

i don't care about being the smartest/funniest/richest/etc. in the room. those adjectives take a lot of work. i'm reasonably smart. i'm funny when i need to be or at the right time. and i really couldn't care less about money. the potential is there to be smart. i did well in school and i love to learn. i'm just very lazy about it all and my interests change to quickly to become knowledgeable about any one thing beyond the basics. i'd much rather be easiest person to be around. the person who listens and doesn't make you tired because you have to work so hard to impress her. i'd much rather be known as a good listener or a good friend or a good designated driver. in the long run, those things mean more than being smartest, funniest or richest. eventually the smartest is thought of as an insufferable know it all, the funniest doesn't have anything going for them other than being funny and the richest is a snob just out to impress everyone with their wallets full of money.

i don't care about being the best at my job. well, in my current job, i'm the only one doing it and they fired someone to hire me fulltime so i guess that does make me the best at my job, but that doesn't make me the best nanny ever. in fact, i probably rank pretty low in the best nanny ever description. but i do my job the best i can and am happy that my best is good enough. but honestly, i don't go out of my way to be extra special. i don't volunteer to stay late if need be. i don't do extra cleaning. i don't go out of my to do special projects with the kids i work with. i'm too busy having fun remembering what it is like to be 3 and 5. i am too busy playing to do most of those other things. and as for volunteering to stay late, i live almost an hour away from work...staying late means getting home late and that just makes for really long days.

basically, i'm ok with my mediocrity because i'm ok with my laziness. my laziness is what makes me mediocre. i could look better if i didn't insist on sleeping until the last second and then having to run out the door with wet hair instead of spending an hour getting ready in the morning. i'd be smarter if i wasn't too lazy to do the work to become smarter. i'd be the best nanny ever if i wasn't too lazy to spend a little extra time prepping fun craft projects instead of building sand castles on the beach.

i'm ok with my mediocrity because i am honest about who i am and most of the time even like who i am.

and because i'm feeling extra bloggy today

i love to swing. a few minutes on a swing will make me happy even on the worst of days. today was definitely not the worst of days, but that didn't make my time on the park swing any less joy-filled. swinging allows me clear my mind and do nothing but enjoy the feeling of soaring. i love it.

today has been so beautiful...my kind of michigan fall day. i spent a large chunk of the day sitting outside with two of the cutest boys in the world. we were either on the beach playing in the sand or hanging out in the backyard. i love that october in michigan still allows me to enjoy the beach.

between the beach, the swings and the beautiful fall weather, i am one content girl today.

shocking declaration

shocking statement of the day:

i almost certainly do not want to have children.

take your time recovering from that statement...i know it is pretty rare to hear that from a member of the girl club.

i said something along those lines to a friend this morning and his reaction, hard to accurately gage as it was via text message, came across as a little shocked. he then asked for details. so jay, this blogs for you.

i play housewife/stay-at-home mom and get paid for it. and i'm only playing as i get to go home to my empty house every night. and i like it. both the playing part and the empty home part. i get the best of both worlds. i get to raise kids but don't have to pay for it (i get paid for it) and i can take a vacation from it whenever i want. and the last three days i've been playing stay-at-home mom 24/7 as the parents of the boys i nanny are in california. and i'm tired. i honestly can not wait til 11pm tonight when their parents get home and i can make the 35 mile drive to my child-free house.

now part of my reasoning for being able to state i don't want kids is because i don't see it in my future. at this point in my life, i seriously doubt i'll find the man of my dreams before the childbearing years are over. i would love to find someone and settle down. but after 32 years of singledom, i don't know if it will happen. so maybe for self-preservation, i've convinced myself that children aren't necessary to my life. i've never been a dater. my longest relationship was about 5 months and that was long distance. i've been told my more than one guy that i'm not dating material because i'm too much like one of the guys. i've also been told i'm perfect mistress material because i'm too independent to be married successfully, but that independence would make me a less clingy, demanding mistress. neither one of those things are good when you want to meet someone, fall in love and live happily ever after. so if i don't get happily ever after (which is a concept i'm naive enough to actually want), i don't get kids. end of story.

that being said, if i were to meet mr. right in time to have children, i would be more than willing to procreate if he wanted to. but i would no longer work with children for my job. knowing myself, i know i would never be able to stay home full time so i'd have to work, but i also know that i could never give 100% working with other peoples children and then come home and give 100% to my own kids. someones kids would get neglected and i'm afraid it would be my own.

so there it is...the quickest way i know to put my thoughts on kids into writing.