Bad Days Are Part of a Great and Sexy Life Too

I’m starting to learn that perfectionism is bullshit.

I used to think a good life meant I was doing everything right. Waking up early. Working out. Being productive. Making money. Traveling. Creating. Drinking enough water. Getting enough sunlight. Making the right choices. All of this meant I would feel happy.

And if I had a day where I cried, stayed in bed, made a choice I regretted, got anxious, accomplished absolutely nothing, or simply didn't feel like the version of myself I wanted to be — I thought something had gone wrong. That I had taken 10 steps back and erased all the hard work I had done.

And that’s just crap.

This week sucked. It wasn’t fun. I didn’t do everything I wanted to do. I didn’t feel like the version of me I wanted to be and have been working so hard to create. I woke up today pissed off at myself, the week, my brain, and everything in between.

Then I remembered something I have begun to tell myself over the past year:

Bad days are a part of a great and sexy life too.

Bad days or bad weeks don’t erase the good.

And yeah, is that totally easier to see now that the week is over and I’m able to write down what I did, what I want to do, and make a good plan so I can tackle my to-do list? Yes.

But that doesn’t take away from the fact that sometimes putting your sheets on your bed is enough. And crying in the McDonald’s drive-through doesn’t mean you have thrown out all the food you made. It just means you needed a double cheeseburger, and that is okay.

All these pieces become about building a life big enough to contain both.

Paris and crying on the couch.

Beautiful dinners and frozen pizza.

Productive mornings and days where your biggest accomplishment is actually just eating breakfast.

Feeling magnetic and feeling insecure.

A glass of wine on a beautiful terrace and a morning when you wish you'd made different choices.

I promised myself if I started Brittany in Wanderland again, I was going to be the same woman online, writing and traveling, who was sitting on the couch with her wine at the end of the night.

And I’m working on it.

Somewhere between trying and becoming, I’ve learned that the sexy, Pinterest-worthy life isn't the perfectly curated life.

It's the life you're actually willing to live.

And maybe the biggest thing I’m learning is that not every bad day needs to become evidence in a court case against myself.

I don't need to cross-examine every decision. I don't need to present Exhibit A: the cheeseburger, Exhibit B: the unanswered emails, and Exhibit C: the morning I stayed in bed, and use them to prove that I'm failing at the life I'm trying to build.

Sometimes a bad day is just a bad day.

Sometimes a bad week is just a bad week.

It doesn't need a verdict on who I am, how far I've come, or where I'm going next.

So, court adjourned.

The evidence has been dismissed.

And the only verdict I'm interested in carrying into next week is this:

Bad days are part of a great and sexy life too.