Life Lessons

Taylor and I grew up with some great one-liners.

If you wear too much makeup you look like a clown. You can love someone and have to let them go. Nothing good happens after midnight. If you're gonna be stupid, you have to be tough.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the things I want to teach baby. Granted most of these lessons won't come until much later in life, but I've been quite philosophical on what I've learned to be a better person (and what I'm still working on).

Among the first life lessons for baby: just own it. That is, don't make excuses for your behavior. Stand by your decisions, be authentic, and apologize when necessary. Don't lie to make yourself look or feel better. Stay true to who you are and how you choose to act. Just own it.

I'm guilty of telling little white lies. Most are small, like saying you hit traffic when you just left the house 15 minutes late. Most of the time I lie to avoid judgement or disappointment. In the moment, a lie to save face seems easier than admitting the truth.

This past New Year's Eve is the perfect example. My friends were curious why I wasn't drinking, and I wasn't ready to tell them that I'm pregnant. I kept going to the bar and ordering things that might "look like" actual drinks. I failed miserably and every time I tried to tell them it was alcohol, they'd call me out on it.

Now granted, I was trying to put on the charade because I wasn't ready for the world to know (or guess) about baby. But I would have saved myself a ton of grief (and embarrassment) if I would have just said, "Nope, not drinking tonight, but still having fun."

Stand by your decisions, be authentic, and apologize when necessary. Don't lie to make yourself look or feel better. Stay true to who you are and how you choose to act. Just own it.

I'm learning. After all, life is a work in progress.