Reality is raw.

Yesterday I wrote a blog about a very real experience. It was undeniably raw.  It was supposed to be. 

I was bleeding truth. 

Many of you sent messages of concern.  Some came directly to me. Others went to people close to me.  

The message that I was not ok spread quickly through every part of my life.  

Those who know me well understood the honesty in my story.  They read what I wrote.  REALLY read what I wrote.  They felt the pain, but understood the beauty I found in the moment. They allowed themselves to focus on each word until the very end.  They knew I was in a good place. 

Those who don’t know me well saw only the pain in my story.  They couldn’t see past the hurt long enough to process my actual words. They had convinced themselves that I must have been in a bad place. 

I don’t know where you fall on that spectrum.  I’m not sure if even you know.  While I appreciate the concern, I assure you, there is no need to worry. 

I am very honest about my process. 

I am quite comfortable with my truth.

I am incredibly pleased with the individual I’ve grown to become. 

I’m very much in love with my life. 

I. 

AM. 

OKAY. 

I believe that story needed to be written.  So, I wrote it.  It was raw. It was real. It was beautiful.  

It’s a truth we are no longer used to. 

I saw a quote the other day that made me think:

“There is no such thing as a bad picture, sometimes that’s just how your face looks.”

It stayed with me. 

We live in a world where we control how others see our reality.  We create profiles in order to collect “friends”, “followers” and “likes”.   We post happy faces. Filtered faces. Good times. We leave out all the rest as if it never existed.

I remember when I was a teenager. When taking pictures involved having to get film developed and printed.  You would be excited to pick up the pictures at the store.  You’d sit around with your family or friends and scroll through them, one by one.  You’d laugh at the horrible ones.  Those awful pictures made some of the best memories. 

Now, they are deleted instantly.  Retaken until we finally get it right.  We deny ourselves these memories because we don’t want evidence of anything shy of perfection.  

Reality is no longer real and we have just accepted THAT as our new reality. 

My story was raw. 

It had to be written. 

I wrote it because I want people to see that real still exists, regardless of the images of perfection we are bombarded with daily. 

We don’t always look perfect.  We don’t always smile. Not every moment is a good one. 

We breathe.

We hurt. 

We cry.  

We love. 

We lose.  

But our lives don’t always need filters. 

Emotion is not something to fear. Pain is not always something to be concerned about. We all experience it.  We’ve just become so used to feeling it alone. In silence. In private. Far away from the reality we feed the rest of the world.  And because of that, we forget that others feel it too. When smiling pictures turn to tears, we panic.  When life gets real, we worry.  

Yesterday I wrote a blog about a very real experience. It was undeniably raw.  It was supposed to be. 

I was bleeding truth.