When I think about life – or at least life as I know it, I can usually break things down into three categories. Bug bites, bee stings, and branded content. Let me explain.

1. Bug bites

Bug bites are the things that get to us. They’re often the little things but still they get under our skin and make us itch. The way I see it, bug bites can be good or they can be bad. For example, they’re good because the discomfort of the situation or the itch can make us take action, but they can also be bad because we can let it drive us crazy.

2. Bee stings

Bee stings are our pain points. The big things. The things that hurt – like breakups or fights with family. Bee stings don’t usually have a good side in the short term but they can make us realize important life lessons like, hey I’m allergic to bees or hey this person is toxic and I probably shouldn’t let their negativity have such an impact on my life. That being said, sometimes the pain goes quick and other times it leaves you reeling.

3. Branded content

Branded content is the stuff we put out into the world. It’s what we do with the bug bites and the bee stings and all the things in between. So while we sometimes take the bad and put out good, we are also human and do the opposite. And similarly, it’s the different personas we put out. It’s the idea that one brand (person) can form different relationships with different demographics – which can be good because you wouldn’t want to talk to your boss the same way you talk to your mom or your best friend.

Stay with me – Bringing metaphor to life

So let’s put some life into this. The past two years (rounding up) life, for me, has felt like a continuous stream of bee stings. And without filling in the blanks, most can guess what those stings were and what they felt like. But see our bodies are funny when it comes to pain. See because pain is supposed to tell us or warn us or stop us about x, y, or z – but sometimes, when the pain becomes too much, we find ourselves going numb to the littler things. We find ourselves going numb to the bug bites, and when that happens, when we lose sight of the itch, we sometimes forget to scratch or to question or to change our path and do things differently. And if that all wasn’t bad enough, sometimes, amidst the numbness, we stop feeling like we have something to say or we get caught up in having too much to say and then we end up silent or stationary or just stuck in what stings the most.

So what’s the point

Honestly, when I started writing this today there wasn’t one. To be frank – I started this because I thought of a tag line and wanted to see if, for the first time in a long time I could run with it. So by the time I got this far. The point BECAME the idea that while coming in from a walk with the dog, my whole body itching because who knows what kind of crack god fed the place to create as many mosquitos as it did this year – I thought of a tag line. And I ran with it.

Which brings us to the present and so if you’re still reading this and you’re still with me and you’re not mad at me for not knowing my ideas made sense before you may have … well then thank you.

But also, the fact that you’re still here makes me wonder. It makes me wonder if maybe something resonated with you. And if that is the case then the point wasn’t nothing, and it wasn’t a challenge it was really about starting a conversation. It was really about me finding that I’m getting back to the person that was creative and inspired and pithy and the person that started this blog with the intention of igniting conversations where we could find answers to why Adulting is so darn hard.

So…

So the point my dear friends (now that I’ve been able to come up with it). The point is that over the past couple months my body has been literally and metaphorically been covered in bug bites and after nearly two years of what felt like being hit with nothing but bee stings I’m finally getting to a point where I can take the hurt and I can take the itch and I can turn it into something constructive.

So while I started writing today with the intent of creating an analogy based on a tag line that popped into my head less than an hour ago – the actual writing made me realize that over the past few weeks I started changing the way I looked at the itchy parts of my life. I started doing things about them and to prevent them and to attack them head on. And I’m making those changes and addressing those things I’ve been able to reignite a conversation not only with myself, but with you as well. And for me – that feels pretty cool.