Today a friend sent me a post on Facebook. Seems simple enough. She sent it to me with a beautiful note and kind words. Everything you can ask for really. Someone who you don’t see everyday who knows a piece of you that you hide from the world. Someone who reads something and thinks of you. She isn’t someone I see everyday or interact with constantly she is just someone that took that extra little bit of time to break through the walls. Which let me tell you isn’t something that is easily done or easily accepted by me. But she did and we have had moments of honesty in a very busy world. That is something to be appreciated.

So I read what she sent me. A very beautifully written and brutally honest piece about feeling out of place and being a person who feels the world very deeply. Actually the piece was about so much more but I will not do it justice trying to summarize it into just a few words so I am going to continue and just leave it here. But what I took from it that has sparked me to write today was about how we walk through life pretending. I’m pretty sure that I am not the only one to do this. We as teenagers, adults, parents and spouses want to present the best to the world. We want people to look at us and think that we have our shit together. But if you are anything like me even on the rare day when I do actually have all the exterior shit together my inner world is a mess. If I had to describe what it would look like it would be like a child’s messy bedroom. Self esteem rumpled like sheets and blankets at the end of an unmade bed. Confidence thrown like dirty laundry over the chair, stained from the battle of pretending like yesterday you had some. Composure kicked into corner of the room like muddy shoes. And Strength shoved under the bed like long forgotten toys.  But even though I might wake up and look around and see this type of mental mess I know I must get up. Somedays I work on cleaning the room and other days I just sigh and walk out to face the day. But the point being that no one sees the mess but you or at least you hope no one does…

Ever since I became a mother, almost 14 years ago, I have found it interesting how desperately mothers want each other to think we have it all together. We talk about how wonderful motherhood is and all the joy it brings. All of that is true but very rarely do you find a circle of mothers who are honest about the rest of motherhood. The dirty parts; the exhaustion, the self doubt, the not wanting to repeat the mistakes of our own childhoods and the everyday mental struggle of “are we screwing up our kids”. It use to really bother me. Because one of the biggest downfalls of pretending is it isolates people. It makes everyone feel alone in their fears and doubts. And who hasn’t had the moment over and over where you ask yourself are you really the only one who feels this way. That lonely moment of fear where you think it is just you against the world as you cling to the edge of the cliff by your fingernails. Bonding over the hard stuff would provide a stronger community not just of mothers but of people. And please know I am not just speaking of complaining. But sometimes a little bit is ok.

There is some irony in how we all want to act ok. To be normal and to smile and not let anyone know our doubts and insecurities. And for me the irony is that pretending to be ok doesn’t help anyone. It is when you let down your walls that you find help and can provide help. And sometimes you will never know about the help that it might provide. And that is ok. It isn’t about the reward it is about the community. Just reading that someone else feels like you might give you the strength to go straighten the mental mess, stand a little straighter and face the world with a little more strength than before. (Which happened to me today with the article) Or you might find that it might just help you. You might just feel a little lighter when the load is shared with friends, or in the case of the internet, complete strangers. Either way pretending isn’t always the right choice. Sometimes we have to let down the walls enough to start to fix the foundation. And in that we might find that we are stronger for it.

With love and support for your own journey,

Michelle