I sat in the garden, hacking at everything.
Too tired to stand up, I raised my arms again and again in frustration against the long line of dead flowers and weeds.
Today was hard.
Not for any specific reason. It was like most other days have become, and I felt anger flying under my skin like the clouds drifting in the sky.
I went online this morning as I ate my cheerios. It was there that I came across an article one of my far away friends posted about the great lie of the internet. About how our daily posts on our profiles are rarely the whole story. About how misleading the overall portrait is that our pictures paint when it comes to truly representing our lives.
My heart was struck.
I love taking a moment to hop online to post pictures of my spitfire niece.
Of my beloved family.
Of my beautiful husband.
Of the wild adventures we go on.
But it’s not the whole truth.
I don’t post about the boring days.
The days I sit on the couch and scroll through all my pictures of the better days.
I don’t like to mention that I’ve been out of work since November because of my health.
I don’t mention how I miss it.
I generally leave out that sometimes I eat jelly beans instead of doing yoga.
That my other half leaves every morning before the sun comes up and pulls 10-14 hour days for his family.
That just before I took that last picture I posted, I had a good old fashioned cry fest in the car because I was feeling sorry for myself like a big baby.
About how worried I am that my Type II CRPS is spreading throughout my body.
How Valium is what got me through our last big trip, prescribed for chronic pain – and how I slept it off for hours in the car as he drove to those picture perfect moments I captured with my camera.
It feels bad to talk of the withdrawals that happen as I wean myself off of the medications because I want my head to be clear.
About how I’m going in for my third surgery of the year to remove damaged muscle and tissue around a wound that just won’t heal.
I don’t want to point out to my friends that I rarely make plans in advance, since every day my body treats me differently.
I don’t want everyone to know about how I’ve cancelled on people I love too many times to count.
Instead, I post the glowing things. I love the light that shines from happy profiles, but we have to remember there’s more to every glittering feed we see. We have to stop comparing our lives to theirs.
If we never know of each others’ darkness, how can we celebrate together when the sun shows its face?
I long for authenticity.
I long to hear the story behind the dark circles. The meaning behind the cryptic caption. I want to hear what happened to make you smile like that.
Though I’m private by nature, I want to stop being a liar. Not because of what I do say, but because of what I don’t.
So now you all know that today was the first day I’ve walked my dog Echo myself since I fell 6 weeks ago. The path beneath my awkward feet felt like a field of hidden hurdles, and I grumped most of the way as my body rebelled. But you know what? It’s the truth. It was one of those “nothing special” days that I generally wouldn’t say a word about. But it’s the truth.
I want to learn yours.
Hours later I sat in the garden, hacking at everything.
Too tired to stand up, I raised my arms again and again in my frustration against the long line of dead flowers and weeds.
That’s when it happened.
One by one, my family members trickled outside and saw me.
One by one, they sank their hands into the dirt beside me.
I stood.
Side by side, we worked until the light died.
My frustrations fell away in the company of my fireflies.
This morning, there was a solid 30 minutes when I debated putting pants on at all today.
Finally, I did.
I’m glad.
And that’s the truth.
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