What Instagram Doesn’t Show

Confession time.

Some evenings I find myself scrolling through Instagram and Facebook, looking at flower farms with endless rows of perfect blooms. Every bouquet looks like it belongs on the cover of a magazine. Every field seems weed-free. Every sunrise is somehow magical. What starts as inspiration somehow ends with me questioning everything we're doing.

The thoughts begin…. Am I behind? Am I not planting enough? Am I in over my head? Do I not have a clue what I’m doing? Have I made the biggest mistake? I should really re-think this whole thing.

I can barely keep weeds at bay, much less grow the lush picture-perfect rows I see on my screen.

But the truth is, I don’t know their story. Maybe that person has been growing for years and managed to figure out how to outsmart every last non-intended plant there is. Maybe they have a staff of people working to sense when a weed begins to sprout. Maybe they have perfected finding just the right angle and lens effect to make all weeds disappear. Maybe they spent 5 hours cleaning one corner of the bed before taking that perfect shot. Maybe they were exactly where I am once upon a time (or still are)

Our story is different. We both work full-time jobs and then give everything we have left to the farm. We have families we love, dogs that need attention, and a house that never seems to stop needing something. We know there will come a day when we can give the farm more, but today it gets the very best we have to give. And we've decided that's enough.

Instead of asking, "Why doesn't our farm look like theirs?" I'm trying to ask a better question: "Are we building something we're proud of?" The answer is yes, one day at a time.

Every flower farm has a story. Some stories are just farther along than ours.

Ours includes dirt under our nails, flowers lost to hungry deer, dreams that are still growing, and victories that may seem small to someone else—but feel enormous to us.

Comparison has a way of making us forget how far we've already come. It steals the joy from today's blooms by making us chase tomorrow's perfection.

So today, I'm choosing to celebrate our story.

Because flowers don't all bloom on the same day. Neither do dreams.