I have a Kevin-Bacon-type of friend (you know, a six degrees of separation thing) who has written a new novel that's coming out in June. My fabulous group of book clubbers has agreed that we'll all read it, and it feels a little like we won the Oprah lottery because we get to read it before it's in stores. Or Kindles, or Nooks, or Sony Readers.
Marybeth (and I call her by her first name because I kind-of-sort-of know her and it makes me sound important) has written a novel titled She Makes It Look Easy. I haven't even read it yet, but just the title has me thinking.
Do you know anyone like that...who makes it look easy?
These people who make cake pops. These people make it look easy. I barely make a cake with a mix and yet there are people, people who do not own bakeries, that are shaping cake into balls, drizzling them with fancy fixings and putting them on lollipop sticks. I don't need this kind of baking intimidation.
The women who have coordinated ensembles at the book fair when you schlep in the door in jeans and a t-shirt--they make it look easy. They make it look like some people have time, energy and the mental capacity to match something that doesn't go with blue jeans or black pants. And by some people, I mean people of the female persuasion who have time to get their eyebrows waxed. This, my friends, is why I have bangs.
People who cook a well-rounded dinner for their families every evening. And enjoy it. Or even remember to put something in the crock pot in the morning. Or perhaps, put meat in the refrigerator to defrost and actually cook it before it is time to just give up and throw it in the trash a week later. Luckily my children love Smart Start cereal and apples. By necessity, perhaps, but they do.
Those people make it look easy. So I'm easily intimidated, perhaps. But I don't think it is just me. Right?
I think we all have some sort of line where we look around and, no matter how well we're holding it together and how cute our new skirt is, we think someone else has got it a lot more together than we do. I honestly consider myself pretty together about 85% of the time. But 10% of the time, I'm a hot mess. And the last 5% I just stay in bed all day and watch Bravo reruns of The Real Housewives. Because next to them, my life looks super easy.
Beth Moore wrote a great book called So Long, Insecurity. I wrote about it a while back--and I remember thinking that no matter how much I thought I wasn't insecure, there is a tiny part of me somewhere in there that really is. A part of me that reverts to 9th grade, when everyone else just seemed cooler than me, didn't wear goofy tinted glasses and had that Sun-In glow to their hair.
Even now, I'm preparing for a meeting with some authority figures (I won't say who) and I am trying to mentally conquer feeling like I'm the one who is 8-years-old, while they are the grown-ups, and I might just get in trouble (with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pretty Sad, don't you think?).
She Makes It Look Easy. I'm looking forward to reading this novel and seeing what happens. Because I know what happens in real life--we do the best we can but spend a ridiculous amount of time comparing ourselves to someone else, or wishing we had what they had.
The grass is always greener, the saying goes, but you never know how much fertilizer the girl across the fence is using, you know? And some girls--well, my Southern self says Bless their hearts, they just need more fertilizer than others.
In other words, I don't really care if my cake is shaped in ball or stuck on a stick, as long as it is chocolate and goes well with a big glass of milk and a Real Housewives marathon.
