So much of my social media feed is food. It’s home cooks whipping up «easy» recipes that look like they would take me two hours to complete. Perfectly-coiffed girls saunter off to pilates and sip on health-optimized smoothies. Mothers make ginormous batches of breakfast sandwiches for their hordes of children. All of it seems almost impossible. 

My life doesn’t look anywhere near what it does for the people on my phone. Sure, I’ll have a couple of good days a month where my fridge is flush with ingredients, recipe inspiration is flowing, and I have the time to cook (and maybe even meal prep). But all the times in between… are times in between. Like eating half of a bagel with peanut butter over the sink, leftover cold and sticky pad thai choked down between work and my next engagement, and a prayer that my iced americano will be enough to last me a few hours until I’m free enough to grab a slice. Maybe I’m an exceptionally chaotic eater (I’m also a vegetarian, so my meals are usually a little scrappy), or maybe I’m just a single person on a limited budget and with a packed schedule. Most of the content I see on my phone is a reminder of all the ways my life doesn’t look like the ones on screen.