Dear Michelle & Logan –

I’ve been losing sleep over you coming. I know, I know – I can see you rolling your eyes at each other and then you telling me to “Stop that! Stop it right now!” But I need you to know my insecurities, need you to know my fears, before you come. Of course I’m excited to see you, and to play with you, and show you the East Coast. Those things I am looking forward to. Suddenly, though, I’m worried about you taking a look at my life through your lens. Suddenly I’m feeling very self-conscious.

I wanted our house to be done, finished, patched up and beautiful. I wanted it to be organized and homey, small yet comfortable. It is not. Finished, that is. We are still at the same point we were months ago, not because of a lack of effort or desire on our part, but because we keep getting side swept by permits being denied, people not returning phone calls, children to care for, and other obligations to tend to. Our house will still be in construction zone when you put your camera up to it.

I wanted to feel better by the time you got here – I’ll be 13 weeks by then. Feel better but not be overly pregnant, you know? Well, as of right now, neither of those is happening. It’s my third kid and I always gain weight so of course I’m going to look pregnant in this film. And I haven’t started feeling any better yet so I doubt that will change by next week.

Not to mention, my best friend/sister flies out of the country literally one day before you get here, with no known date of when I’ll see her again. I’ll still be trying to pick up the pieces of my heart and get distracted with work so I don’t have to think about it too much.

In short, I’ll be a mess. And I’m scared that you’ll take one look at our crazy, messy life and – though you won’t say it aloud, of course you wouldn’t – you’ll think, “This is going to be a tough job.” I’ll be real with you – it will be. This is going to be one of those times where you’ll be shooting a t-ball game as if it were the world series. I’ve been there before and I know what that’s asking of you. And I’m sorry.

I’m feeling completely vulnerable. It’s a great thing I consider you one of my closest friends – not just in the industry, but in life – because I can’t imagine doing this project with strangers. I’m self-conscious enough as it is. It’s one thing to sit down at my computer and post still photos that I carefully curated and edited, and write words that I also erased and rewrote and edited, and only hit “Publish” after I’ve given it my Okay. It’s another to know that my living, breathing life will be recorded and shared for future clients and visitors of my website. It’s incredibly intimidating.

These worries are not from lack of belief in you. I chose you because I do believe in you and what you do together. I’m just struggling to believe that I get to be a part of that magic that you create, and I’m feeling overwhelmed with the Perfectionism Struggle – the desire for everything to be just perfect before I can even begin to try, and since it’s not there yet, we “better wait.” In fact, if I hadn’t already bought your plane tickets out here, I may have called the whole thing off. May have said, Let’s wait until the house is Finished. Until the baby is out. Until I lose the baby weight. Until I have more clients. Deep down, I know there is no better time than now. Now is not perfect – but tomorrow will never be perfect, either.

I’ll stop coming up with excuses, I’ll stop being a scared little baby, but I wanted you to know, before coming into this, what you’re getting into. Our house really is small, and you’ll hear every cry in the middle of the night, every bathroom break, every 7am (or 6am) wake up call from my children. They’ll whine and be crazy and nothing will be easy to get done. I promise I’ll make it as warm and inviting as I can, but it’s not going to be perfect. I know you never asked for perfection, but I certainly was hoping to give it to you.

I love you both, and I can’t wait for the chance to get to know Logan better. To learn from you two, and yes, to even be your client. Thanks for taking messy me and running with it. See you next week.