The Truth About My Square Life: Hiking The Mountain

The Truth About My Square Life is a series attempting to stop pretending the highlight reels of our lives on Instagram are the whole picture. If you're anything like me, I bet you find yourself comparing your real life to other peoples' square lives, their highlight reels, as if it's the whole picture of their lives. And this comparison game is exhausting, and it's stealing our joy.

So let's stop that. 

Back in September, I took my high schoolers to camp. While at camp, we woke up to have a morning hike up the mountain and I posted this picture:

Hiked to the top of Sharptop yesterday morning with the greatest group of girls. 

What it looks like is going on: I'm outdoorsy and fit. I spend my weekends climbing mountains and watching the sunrise, all before you've even thought about getting up. Also, I volunteer with high schoolers, so obviously I'm better than you. Do you volunteer...at all? We spent a lot of time up here, just enjoying the view. Because I have time for things like camp and hikes and nice views. I have mastered the work/life balance conundrum. 

The truth about my square life: First of all, it was cold and dark, and one of my high schoolers was very concerned about bears. Bears had never even occurred to me until we were hiking, and then I had the terrible realization that I was the adult in the situation, and I had no idea what to do if we did actually see a bear. I was pretty sure I was leading my girls to a death trap and that bears were lurking around every corner. Also, it's a long, hard, steep hike up the mountain. And I have asthma, but I didn't want to be the reason we didn't make it to the top. So. Much. Wheezing. When we finally got to the top, we had all but missed the sunrise. One of our hammocks flipped over, spilling my sweet high schoolers all over the mountaintop, and one girl hit her head. Another moment of panic, because I'm the adult in the situation, and what if she's bleeding. I've watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy, but have almost no actual medical knowledge. (Don't worry, she was totally fine, just a little bump.) Then we lost track of time, and didn't start our hike down in time for breakfast. So we completely missed breakfast. Granola bars for the win! 

The view was incredible. And the hike was so worth it. But the square doesn't show you the full story.  Instagram is never the full story. Don't let comparison steal your joy. Don't be so hard on yourself, your real life was never meant to measure up to someone else's square life.