You Don’t Have To Be Pinterest Perfect

I have a love-hate relationship with Pinterest.

• You don’t have to be Pinterest Perfect.

  I have a love-hate relationship with Pinterest. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful that Pinterest single handedly planned my wedding, and it is literally my only form of a cookbook, but darn you Pinterest, I hate the pressure you put on me! I can no longer simply attend a friend’s baby shower. I feel like I must spend hours baking cupcakes that look like Sesame Street Characters, wrap them in burlap and lace that I sewed from newspaper and hay bales, and have them magically turn pink or blue when it is time for the gender reveal. I can’t buy a picture frame at Target anymore; I feel the need to build a window pane from antique wood, stain it using only my toothbrush and some nail polish and create a photo centered masterpiece that features not only my photo, but a little heart shaped map of everywhere I have ever been in love. Yes Pinterest, I love your ideas and I do enjoy a good craft every now and then, but nowhere in your vast database do you say, “It’s okay to just be regular, it’s okay to just be human, it’s okay to just bake your kids cookies from the box”.
  
  I love being a woman. I love being girly, but this is not the 1950s. Women have careers now! Women are busy moms! Women have more important things to do than bake an almond flour-strawberry cheesecake casserole! (Even if that did turn out to be one of my better Pinterest experiments). There is nothing wrong with enjoying a good pinning session, or having fun on a free Saturday trying out a new craft or recipe, but don’t allow yourself to be sucked into a world of higher than possible standards. Cut yourself some slack. No one can live in a world full of glitter and clothes that you made yourself out of old bed sheets. Pinterest is a fun, imaginary world. Its standards are not real. You are allowed to be real. You are allowed to burn cookies and not sew your child’s diapers. You are allowed to be you.
  
  You don’t have to be Pinterest Perfect. Take a moment and let that sink in.