You got the surface and substance confused.

Don’t believe what you read in those interviews. Jamais.

Life is absolutely craptastic right now, and it never fails to seem more so after I’ve spent a few hours on Facebook.

I had a miscarriage, so of course, several of my friends are pregnant.

My husband and I are experiencing one of the worst times in our marriage, so of course everyone is celebrating anniversaries and talking about how amazing their spouses are and their lives are together.

Working from home is a constant hustle, then we experienced financial crisis after financial crisis, including a leak in a roof (coming right down through the effing ceiling fan and electrical work OF COURSE) and a fried computer that had to replaced (see working from home), so of course all our friends are taking awesome vacations or buying new homes or getting promotions.

Yeah yeah, I know. It’s Facebook. It’s total bullshit. No one posts about their real life. Everyone posts the happy stuff. It makes everyone else feel inadequate and depressed by comparison.

When you start talking to people, you realize that behind those bright and happy posts, their lives are just as shitty. Nothing brings out the truth by talking about your own shitty life. In the past few months, I’ve learned about friends’ miscarriages, their struggles with infertility, their own near misses with separation or divorce, their own struggles with kids, and their own shitty childhood stories.

I get it and I don’t. I understand why people want to keep all the shitty stuff on the low down. You don’t want to depress everyone with your own depressing stuff. You don’t want to depress yourself more by talking about your depressing stuff. You want to focus on the positive. You want to keep conversation light and “polite.”

Yet, if we’re all wallowing in the same muck, why not be more honest about it so that we can help raise each other out of it — or at least feel less shitty about being in it? Why not say: “Yes, my life, too, can be a shit sandwich, and I have no fucking idea what I’m doing half the time, yet it feels like the rest of the world does, and that makes me feel lonely and inadequate” — and then we all feel less lonely and inadequate in the process.

It’s not just Facebook or the Internet. It’s how most people are in their real lives. It’s something I’ve always struggled with. I’ve never understand why you have to ask someone if you can ask them a “personal question.” I’ve never understood why it’s rude to ask people certain things. It took me years to understand the concept of TMI.

I wish we could all just be more open.

So just what is real and just what is fake? Well in life you never get to do a second take. Jamais.

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