Yeah, I’m just about ready to give up.

Because the thing is, where in the world is the real in the world?

Real honesty. Real being. Real authenticity being actually practiced, not quasi-practiced-but-really-just-packaged-for-public-consumption.

Can I just say it? It’s near impossible to find any real candor these days. Nope, I’m not just talking about the social sites either – unfiltered pics notwithstanding.

I mean in real life. Flesh-and-blood, walking and real live talking life.

No one seems to really want to be real, no matter how many articles on authenticity we like and re-post and pin.

I get it. Being authentic? Like really, really authentic? Well, that’s just a bit too real.

Things can get messy when you show folks who you really are.

We’re all a bit of a bundle of contradictions, us humans. We desperately want to be known, but don’t want anyone to know the real us. We’re lonelier than ever, but guard our innermost selves from the world, lest the world reject us.

But the hard truth is, you can’t ever really connect with anyone in any sort of meaning-full way if you’re not really connecting from the heart.

Relationships don’t grow in the thin soil of persona, but in the rich humus of the human soul.

Real me, real you. Being honest enough and open enough and yes, being just a bit of vulnerable enough, to let the real self be seen.

It’s the only way to be known, really.

Which is what we’re all sort of wanting, really.

It looks a lot like courage. Like one brave soul saying that yes, here I am – a bit of a mess and a bundle of mistakes too and – what? You too?

Looks a lot like connection, one human to another.

We are all, after all, just messy humans trying our best to do our best with the best of intentions sometimes and the worst of intentions sometimes. Honestly, we’re all just mustering the strength every day to live imperfect lives in what turns out, after all, to be a most imperfect world.

We fail and we fall and we falter and yes, I’m going to admit it – my laundry is really never caught up and no, I do not clean out the sink and the kitchen every night, and if you stop by for coffee or tea there will most likely be a pot brewing but even more likely there’ll be crumbs on the floor too and – what? You too?

Picture perfect is what we post on Instagram and what we paste across our faces most days because this is what we’ve been taught and maybe this is okay for a lot of us. Maybe we even need to be a bit of a persona for a bit of life. Not everyone, after all, has earned the right to our vulnerability.

But surely we can crack it open a bit for those who’ve cracked open a bit for us?

I’m sitting here typing this post out and it’s quiet and my coffee’s getting colder but my thoughts are flying fast because this, I think, is real. It’s not what I was going to write. Not what I’d outlined, researched, roughly drafted out.

That post – the one I was going to polish up and publish – will have to wait for another day. It’s a beautiful thought – all about gratitude and journaling and how keeping a written list of gratitude really can change your life. I believe that to be true. I know it to be true. But it’s also true that even the practice of keeping a gratitude journal will not make the messiness of life disappear, not even if you’re jotting those blessings down on gilt-edged paper.

And anyway, maybe the world doesn’t need yet another person lecturing on the benefits of gratitude-journaling just now.

Maybe it just needs one person to step up and say yes, here I am – a bit of a mess and a bundle of mistakes too.

You too?

Maybe the world just needs more of us to give up the persona more.

And just be us more.

~xo,
LuAnne