Kumbaya

I follow a ton of blogs; parenting, home improvement, cooking, single, married, animal lovers... you name it and there is probably a blog on my Digg reader that will align with your request. I also occasionally read viral blog posts. Some are funny, some are tear jerkers and some just make me shake my head. One viral post I've seen around social media lately centers around anti-marriage and anti-parenting. This has sparked a number of rebuttal blog posts, this being one. Sort of.

I don't get it. I really don't. What is about other folks lives that people wish to critique so harshly. So what if you don't want to get married, so what if you don't want to to have kids. What makes it your job to convince the rest of the world that your lifestyle is 'the chosen one'? And on the same token, if you want to have an army of little minions. Kudos to you. If you want to live on the water with six cats and a parrot...that's your prerogative. It's like single folks, married folks and parental folks can't co-exist. If you're in one category, you can't fit in another. Friends vs. Seinfeld-esque.We spend most of our lives fitting in, ticking off boxes on forms. Why must we constantly remind one another about it. More so, why must we prove our way is the better way.

I have a large base of friends that are all in different places in life. Some are single and traveling the world, some are happily married with animals they treat like family, some are already on their third child. Their lifestyle choices do not impact me, you, or the girl next door.

There are aspects in life that carry more flavor from one phase to the next. Was life without my Peanut easier? Sure, in some regards. But life without Tucker was more carefree, too. Does that mean I regret one phase of life after I've moved past it? Of course not. I live and breathe my husband and Peanut (and Tucker). I absolutely, would not want to live this life without any of them. And one day in our future we will hopefully add on our to family. Will we miss life with just one child? Maybe aspects of it. But we certainly won't regret bringing another life into this world.

There are no instructions in life. You cannot follow one set of directions and be guaranteed a desired outcome. You can follow your gut, you can make the best decisions possible, you can pray often but at the end of the day, life is never quite like you plan it. It can be perfect one day and a storm the next. Life is too complicated and too hard to constantly beat others up because of their lifestyle choices. I've spent too much time in my life worrying about things I cannot control. How someone else should live their life, or shouldn't live their life, is none of my business, your business and it sure as hell isn't the neighbor's business.

So this is an ode to singles, married, single with kids, married without kids, traditional families, non-traditional families and every walk of life in between. Live your own life. Be happy with the choices you make. If you're not happy with your choices, change them. Surround yourself with people who love you for you, not what you do or don't bring to the table. In the words of Florida Georgia Line (who put on an amazing concert by the way) "This life I live it might not be for you, but it's for me though"