Why Facebook’s not so bad

                I’ve recently read a few blog posts about the “lie” of Facebook.  You know what I mean…  All the smiling, happy families and loving, glowing mommies.  All the arts and crafts, beautiful food, perfect sunlight casting the perfect ray of light in the perfect angle, so that everyone knows that your *entire* life is one, big, huge, toothy grin for all of us to see.

                But you know what?  Here’s the thing: we aren’t fooling anyone.  And my guess is, even better, we’re not even intending to fool anyone.  Because I’m a mom, a woman, a person, a friend.  And all of you are living this life too, with varying identities, so we all get it.  The truth is out there.  The beautiful moments of your life happen for seconds here and there each day, and you photograph those, while all of the exasperation, the sweat and tears, and the drudgery of daily life is… well…  filed away in the “boring, mundane, and unphotographable” file.

I don’t fault any of us for posting the best of ourselves and our families online.  I see a facebook profile as the modern version of a family photo album.  And what do you put in your photo album?  The picture you took of your child screaming bloody murder for M&Ms in the Wegman’s check-out line?  Do you post the picture of you and your husband arguing about him missing date night for work AGAIN?  Do you post the picture of you catching up on SNL last night, in the bathroom with the door closed, while your family thinks you’re getting in the shower?  Of course not.  Because you don’t TAKE those pictures.  Those are not “memorable moments.”  At the end of this long, brutal, beautiful life, all we will want to remember (and I bet all we WILL remember) are the ray-of-light moments.  So that’s what makes the cut in the family facebook album, too.

However, I hope that what I convey to my friends in person is that life is BOTH the ray-of-light moments, and the HELLA TOUGH moments.   And I don’t mean that only parenting is tough.  I mean that all of us, parents, single women and men, partnered folks without babies, LIFE, in general, puts us all through the freaking ringer.  What I try to convey to my friends in person, and mostly in private, is that I have been taught- brutally and repeatedly- that my judgment of anyone else’s choices, hardships, or successes, is a true waste.  Whenever I’m with other people, particularly those who don’t know me well yet, I try to help them understand that I’m a safe place.  You can be real with me, because I too experience the brutality of life along with its intense beauty.  And I know it’s a rollercoaster we’re on.  So if you need someone to hang out with at the bottom of the hill, friend, then I’m your girl.  I’m going to sit in that car with you.  And if you need me to hop out once you’re headed back up the hill so someone can take your picture, beautiful and glowing all by yourself or with your now beautiful and beaming family, then sister, I’m happy to step aside.  My gratification comes in knowing that I was a rock for you for a minute, and I believe in Karma.

I stopped writing here for a while because my life has been a bit more brutal than it has been beautiful for the last few months.  I’ve continued recording the beautiful stuff in my Facebook Family Album because, later, I will look back and see this time as what it probably will be in the end.  A long road that was scary and mean, but that ended like any storybook should.  I’m not there yet, and I imagine I’m not going to get there for a while.  But I know silence isn’t helping, and I know writing helps.  But even more than writing helps, I know that being known helps.  I know that authenticity has been my modus operandi for my entire life.  For some reason, it helps me get through to the other side of The Crap when the people around me know I’m in the middle of The Crap.  So much of this recent story is written in fragmented thoughts, muddled sentences, expletives, and tears.  Some of this story is written in outstretched hands, smiles, phone calls, emails, and hugs.  I can’t make sense of all of it alone, in my head.  I know I can’t because I’m trying and it’s either staying the same or getting harder- not sure which (see? Messy).  So I’ll start writing.  I’ll continue being known the way I prefer to be known.  And I’ll continue posting the sunshine of my life in my family album.  Not because I want to fake you all out, but because that’s what I want to remember.  And also because, I need to be reminded, as I scroll through the photo album of the last few months of my life, that there are moments in every day that are okay.  Good, even.  MEMORABLE, even.

A close friend of mine recently went through The Struggle of Her Life.  Right around the time The Struggle began, she found a blank journal in her house and knew she needed to write.  The interesting thing was that this blank journal was a “Gratitude Journal.”   You’re supposed to write one thing you’re grateful for, every day, for 30 days.  Apparently if you do this, you will change your life, your soul, your spirit, for the better.  She decided to write about her Struggle through the lens of how she can be grateful for it.  She said it saved her life.  I’ve decided I need to do this, too.  I’ve become entrenched in the negative, dark, scary, hopeless parts of this time in my life, and do not spend nearly enough time feeling grateful.  I feel anxious, small, humbled, and incapable.  I feel scared most of every day.  So if I can turn that around, and start looking at the good and beautiful things, perhaps that’ll save my life, too.  And perhaps it will save the lives of the people who have been entrusted to me- namely, my children.

Today, I am grateful that I can write.   One of my gifts is writing from the heart.  Not everyone can take her heart and pour it out onto a blank page in a way that both makes sense to her and to the reader.  I’ve sorted out many emotions over the years by simply writing them down and allowing myself to discover Truth as I write.  Now that I’m ready to admit that alone is not my way to go, and silence simply doesn’t work for me, I’m also ready to start turning my muddy feelings into more organized feelings.  Feelings I can understand, and then move into/over/through.  If you all want to sit in the car with me at the bottom of this hill, thank you.  If you don’t, it’s okay- I will be heading up to the top at some point down the track, and I’ll be happy to have as much company as possible, on any part of my journey.