WHY BLOG?

I've always been one to journal. I love doodling and writing about events or things that are going on in my life. Clay (my husband) laughs at me because I still have a planner I used in college that has little snippets of our relationship written down on the dates they occurred. For example: "October 13th: Cooked dinner with Clay (spaghetti and meatballs) and talked about future! Eek!" (and yes, I wrote "Eek!") or "November 12th: Wrote a letter to Clay being vulnerable and honest and he said it was refreshing." or "December 4th: He texted me sweet things..."You're a stud, happy to call you baby girl." I mean HOW can I get rid of that goodness?! After a recent re-reading of these dear sentences I realized sadly, I've stopped writing them down. I guess I just rely on social media to take me down memory lane now. Access to my memories (in photos & with captions) in an instant, without having to hunt through boxes and boxes in the attic.

Seems smart, right?

But here's the thing, I would never post a picture on social media equivalent to my planner sentence that reads, "December 31st: "Clay ditched me on New Year's Eve-- spent the night crying and watching re-runs of Grey's Anatomy alone." or "August 24th: Went downtown for a concert, drank too much, didn't make good decisions. Bad night." or "September 1: Went to Marietta. Just don't feel appreciated. I try to please everyone and it's never good enough." Now, I'm not sharing that with you to get some form of sympathy. I'm sharing these snippets too because without them my "trip down memory lane" (aka reading my planner) isn't totally transparent or a raw representation of what was going on at that point in time. Those hard sentences are just as important to remember because those moments have formed who I am now as a wife, mother and friend. If I didn't go back and read the hard than I don't think I would truly appreciate the good. 

In today's world, we are subject to everyone's "best-self" via social media. We see everyone's dreamy beach vacations, amazingly good-looking significant other, perfectly well-behaved children, or their immaculately clean and perfectly decorated home. But very rarely (if ever) do we see posts about our true heart-aches, our children having a complete melt down, our disastrous & messy home, or the overall state of one's heart. And, what does this create? Bitterness, comparison (at least for me) and LIES. When I sit and scroll I come up with fairy tales and butterflies about the people in those pictures. I compare, I become bitter (Geez, I hope I'm not alone in this) and I believe the lies that they have it better than I do. When in reality, they could be flat out miserable behind that device. We simply just don't know. Unless you are actively living life with someone, a post on social media is a controlled posed post. Not always, I'm speaking in generalities, but you know what I'm trying to say. We get to choose what we share. We get to choose the image that we want to portray. And I think that a lot of it is real, don't hear me say different, just hear me say I think there is a lot more that stays behind the scenes.

Only seeing someones "good-half" is misleading. How are we able to truly love one another if we only see the good and think that everything is fine? How do we know to ask the hard questions? How do we know when to step in and bring someone a meal because of a terrible week they've had? Well, We really don't know because we're only getting part of the story. 

Only recently has this started to pull on my heart strings. After experiencing a recent traumatic event myself and seeing this very thing play out on my own account, I knew I had to end the trend. I have to share what is REAL: the good snippets AND the hard ones. Otherwise, people scrolling just have no idea what is really going on behind the lens. I have to share the raw and real story behind the nicely posed, seemingly "perfect" family of four + a pretty pup. 

So, why blog?

I want to bring this topic to light. And I want to know your thoughts. I know many women struggle with this and I feel that it is my "do-good" contribution to the world to create a forum to talk REAL. Now, don't get me wrong there are definite GOOD things to share and post (and those will happen here, too). But this will be a space for me to share my true story, not only as a "hip and with-it" memory lane, but for someone out there that feels the same. Someone who is tired of the masks social media allows us to put on.

For someone who is ready to be REAL, too. 

XO