…so i went running. my grandmother, with whom i was staying, lives in a neighborhood that is full of stupidly large homes. one after the other. each one more grandiose and perfectly manicured than the next. perfect sidewalks lead to perfect lawns on perfect tree-lines streets where perfect luxury cars drive. it feels like the truman show, but with loads more money.
after about two miles, i realized i wasn’t remotely relaxed. if anything, i was worse than i had started. and it occurred to me that it was the neighborhood -the pristine house after pristine house. i constantly struggle with my desire to present a perfect front to the world. i guess we all kind of do. social media exacerbates this for me. my instagram feed looks like i live a life mostly composed of cocktails and exotic beaches. my twitter and facebook read like a person who is perpetually cheerful. it’s not real. you guys know that, right?
it think the phrase “it takes one to know one” is applicable here. running past lush lawns and shiny windows and trimmed hedges made me think of all my own messes that i hide behind a valencia filter and 140 character quip.
living honestly seems like such a simple idea. it actually seems like it should be the easy route. to just be rather than show. but it’s an ongoing effort for me -to reveal my messiness. and not just because covering it up is exhausting. but because i think it’s important for us humans to show we’re in this together -that we understand the dark stuff and the hard stuff because we ALL deal with it. and really, at the end of the day, that’s okay.
this, you guys. just this.
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