The Reality Behind these “Perfect” Doors…

The comment was in regards to my post about our Today Show feature and although it was so incredibly sweet and positive, it made me sad. You see, I feel as though my blog reads likes book. A compilation of our lives in real time, peeks into my past and renovations detailed from start to finish. Yet I sometimes forget that there are some of you who just take a peek inside. Maybe you’ve just stumbled upon my blog and have just started following along. Or maybe you only catch a post every now and again.  Whatever the case may be, maybe you don’t see the whole entire picture. You only see the features and the fun. And yes, that’s obviously the stuff that I love to share. That I’m proud of. That I’m working to accomplish. Yet that’s basically the “after” or the “high points” or the “features” of my story. Our story.

There’s this thing about blogging and about designing that bugs me. Literally drives me insane. I talk to Mark about it almost daily. I honestly feel as though having been given an “artistic gift” is almost as much a blessing as it is a curse. And I mean that only in the sense of the outside looking in. Of those passer by’s who glance at my page or pop into my blog every now and again. It’s the curse of feeling completely misunderstood. That I’m materialistic. That I spend my entire life obsessing over wallpaper and paint colors. That my kids look perfect and my house is immaculate every second of every day. Design is my passion.  And that is all. I love it and I daydream about it and I also do it for a living. Now I blog about it all for a living and that’s where it got tricky. Now that my career has become sharing my designs, my ideas and my life, 90% of the time, I have to focus on the wonderful. And the whimsical. Because the reality is that you most likely wouldn’t have been drawn to my blog had I posted the mess, the hard times and rooms that we never got around to finishing. Those aren’t Pinterest worthy. They’re not Instagram worthy. They won’t drive traffic to my blog. And they won’t help me advance my dreams. So I share the beautiful. And the wonderful. And the exciting.

Every now and then, I do get deeper though. And those are the posts that I fear you miss. Posts like this where I tell you that life isn’t perfect. Yes, it’s going pretty good right now but it hasn’t always been this way and it won’t always be this way. I know that. I saw this quote on Facebook tonight and it stopped me in my tracks…

“There will be years that ask and there will be years that answer. God never wastes pain.”

Gosh you don’t know even know how true that has been in my life. Several years ago were the years that asked. That I asked. Why is all of this happening? Life seems so perfect. And now it’s all getting thrown around and thrown away. We’ve almost lost our marriage and almost lost our business at different points over the last ten years. And then suddenly the years started to answer. That pain caused decisions. And changes. That all ended up leading to today.  Dreams I’ve had for decades that seemed a needle in a haystack coming true right before our eyes. Simply because we changed the course. Because that course would’ve never led to today. Yet at the time it seemed the only way. The best way. So He had to royally stir things. Like thought my life was “over” stir things up. So these days I celebrate that we’ve made it through those times. That we fought through the hardships, changed our paths and held on tight. We didn’t give up even when everything on Earth told us to walk away. I think those times taught me that it’s okay to admit defeat. To be honest and open like I try so hard to do on my blog. And although I’ll never share the intimate details to my past, I have shared lots before. And if you have the time and haven’t done so before, I hope you’ll read these posts. And get to know me a little bit better. Here are just a few…

XOXO, Brittany Hayes