Day 30 – Stop Pretending

I have to say something.

I started this blog a little over a month ago as an experiment. For myself, mainly, but I also thought that some people might benefit from the things I had to say and from knowing that they are not alone on their journeys.

My response has been much different than anticipated. I originally invited only a few people who I knew and then other people who I didn’t know started to read. I can’t monitor who reads this blog, but I can monitor how many people read, and I had a surprisingly high number of readers initially. When I stopped writing for over a week, my readers fell off, but now they are coming back.

What is most interesting is how people respond. I have had people contact me asking for advice and encouragement, and I have had others contact me to give me advice and encouragement, and I have opened myself up to the judgements and opinions of people I don’t even know.

It’s not easy, putting myself out there, knowing that someone will talk about me; knowing that someone else may find out something that makes them not like me. But that is one of the reasons I started this blog. So that I could get over this need to pretend like I am perfect. With the life work I have chosen, I’m going to have to be able to tell the whole truth if I want to help people.

And I think that is the biggest reason that most of us stay so hidden from each other. We don’t want to be judged. We don’t want anyone to say we’re crazy or stupid or sick. We don’t want to be laughed at or talked about, so we pretend that we have it all together. We start wars, kill, divorce, fight, and destroy all so that we can guard our points of view and hold on to this idea that,  yes, we are right and you are wrong.

The truth is, when we are alone with our thoughts and honest, we know that no matter how much we know we could always know more. We know that there have been times in our lives when we haven’t had it all together, when we haven’t even bothered to think about living with integrity.

A friend of mine who reads this blog told me that he always thought I was so happy. I am. And I’m sad sometimes and kind and honest and mean and selfish and giving and funny and serious… I’m thinking of Alanis Morisette’s song “I’m a *itch I’m a Lover”…

Wonder if she’d like to be friends?

Day 30

Stop Pretending