I keep reading posts about how everyone only shares the shiny pretty parts of their lives. Posts about how we have to stop comparing our lives to others, because all the others are only sharing the best parts of theirs. Posts about how we should be real with each other, we should share our dirty dishes and too-full schedules and family spats. Posts about boycotting Pinterest because it just makes you feel bad. Posts about featuring our imperfection.
And every time I see one of these posts flying around all viral-y, I sigh quietly. Because the internet I know and love and have chosen to dive into? We’re not sharing perfect. We’re sharing it all. The good, the bad, the really bad. The internet I know and love is not hiding.
She’s sharing about her incredible depth of loss, three babies later.
She’s writing to us after each publication rejection.
She’s hating her Whole30 but is pressing on in the name of health.
She did post a photo of her sink, full of crusty dishes.
She’s telling her fears of attending a conference, afraid she won’t be welcomed.
They’re searching for a home and it’s been a long, long time since they’ve lived in one.
Thanks to Pinterest, she found a chore chart that doesn’t make her kids roll their eyes.
She’s struggling with weight loss and writing each step of the way.
She had a hard time keeping her patience today, and wrote about the moment she lost it.
Her scars are right there, made public for all to see.
My internet isn’t about perfection. It’s the first place I was able to voice my real. It’s always been about sharing our real, about keeping a gate flung wide to welcome in others, about using our voices to give others the courage to use theirs. It’s always been about sharing our stories, about giving God room to make beauty from ashes, about learning to write when we’re terrified but can’t fight the pull of the keys.
The internet I hold dear has never been about showing off perfection. I don’t see a parade of perfect on Facebook; I see you. Good, flaw-filled, lovely and wonderful you. I am so grateful for you, and I love my internet =)
-anna
{girl with blog}
You are such a blessing Anna!! Talk about not perfect – my girl who is almost 3 is potty training…tonight she said she had to go potty…so I just sent her in. BAD mistake. She had apparently pooped her underwear, taken them off and put them on again leaving a trail of poo in the bathroom in very unlikely places I might add…and then she brought me a diaper to put on her and I realized the fiasco. Good times and all this after a LONG, extended day at work. But I wouldn’t trade her for the world…so I have to remember the blessings and that this too will be a distant memory in short order! Have a wonderful Friday!! 🙂
Oh sweetness… that’s so, so funny. Not like haha funny, like ‘oh mama, lemme buy you a cupcake’ kind of funny =) Thanks for being part of the lovely and real internet that I love =)
I think that a lot – the people I choose to read/follow are real – they show the good, bad and ugly, and I hope others see that in me, too.
I love this! I try to be real. Good and bad. And I think I am drawn to people that are the same way. Plus: I love me some pinterest! 🙂
I. Love. This. And you.
Also, I just posted a nasty sink picture yesterday. Life’s no fun if we’re not honest about it. 😉
I’ve shared the good, the bad and the ugly. Pictures of me “after surgery”, stories about an alcoholic boyfriend that I spent one horrible weekend with, the death of my beloved daddy. And I’ve shared road trips and girls night out and family reunions. I’m like you…this is the place where I can share everything, where I can voice my real!
The impossibly perfects are hiding something, and we know it. What they hide isn’t clear, but they can pull the gauzy filter of Instagram and the Internet over themselves and bask in the perfection all they want. I know it, and see it. I have a friend who posts gorgeous photos of food and boasts all the time of their ‘perfect, organic, local, sustainable’ diet, yet once confessed to me that mealtimes are always an epic battle with her two kids and that they never eat what she makes. Not once has this ever been mentioned on her perfect blog, or her perfect Instagram feed.
What is so wrong with imperfection that we feel forced to push it aside and only play up the pretty parts of our lives? What has driven us so far off center? I overheard a woman at Home Depot berating a design clerk because she couldn’t replicate what the woman had seen on Pinterest. “It’s on Pinterest! Someone made this! Why can’t you??”
Is this really what our lives have become? It makes me so sad.