Keeping up…

Have you ever sat down to do a task and you start out with a clear vision and a plan and then as you followed the vision the whole thing changed right in front of your eyes?  You thought you were doing one thing and then all of a sudden you’re doing something completely different?  That’s what happened with this post.  I was going to talk about Keeping Up…with the Joneses, with the pace, with the times, with the good work, and with appearances.  It took a turn and my innards kinda just spilled out all over my plans.  So, the following is what happened when I started writing about keeping up appearances. Maybe I’ll get around to writing that other post I envisioned another day!

is for Keeping Up!

Keeping Up Appearances

Keeping up appearances, pretending that everything is just fine and dandy when the reality is that things are far from perfect, can be destructive.  And so many of us do it.  Why?  Because we’re afraid.  Afraid to reveal that we’re vulnerable, that we’re fallible, that we aren’t perfect.

Somehow as a child I got it into my head that I needed to Keep Up Appearances, no matter what.  And keeping on the good face was a skill I perfected; when things were bad only people that knew me well could tell.  To the rest of the world I gave the impression that everything was great and completely under control.  In reality, my life has been spinning out of control for longer than I can remember.  I “faked it”, all of it – friendships, school, relationships with friends, everything – for so long and so well that I forgot how to be real (or maybe I never knew).


When life threw a curve in my path, I just kept right on smiling and pretending that it was all part of my plan from the beginning.  The truth is:  I never had a plan.  Life threw so many curveballs in my direction that all I could really do was try to dodge them and keep smiling.

And I died inside.  I felt so alone.  No one knew the real me; I didn’t even know the real me.  No one knew my hopes, my dreams, my wishes.  And I was terrified to stop the charade and be vulnerable long enough to let anyone in to get to know me.  I had been hurt enough, I didn’t want to be hurt anymore.  I was afraid to share my thoughts and dreams with anyone for fear of being ridiculed and laughed at.  I was afraid to be hurt, but in refusing to be vulnerable enough to be hurt I prevented all the good things that come from vulnerability too; the camaraderie, the feeling that you belong, the feeling of being loved for who you are.


Somewhere along the way I began believing that I could never be loved for who I was; that the only love I would see would be for what I did.  So I tried to be everything for everyone.  The Mom who always packed the kids’ lunches, who volunteered at the school, who always made sure to braid her daughter’s hair, who enrolled her children in all the extracurricular activities the kids wanted, on and on and on.  The wife that sewed, painted, cooked, cleaned, did yard work, and was still exciting and fun in the bedroom.  The friend that would drop everything for you, would always be there whether it was to cheer you on or babysit your kid or drink a bottle of wine with you and listen to all your troubles.  The employee who could not only do everything you hired me to do, but a ton more and efficiently!

And no matter how much I did, I felt like I was failing.  Failing as a mother.  Failing as a wife.  Failing as a friend.  Failing as an employee.  Nothing I did was good enough.


And then I got angry that nothing I did was good enough and looked around to find someone to blame.  I blamed the kids, I blamed my husband, I blamed my friends, I blamed my boss.  I put up walls all around me to try to shield me from hurt, but I really hurt because nothing in my life was real because I wasn’t real.

And then, somehow, a miracle occurred.  I realized that all this faking it was killing me from the inside out.  I realized that it was time to take a long hard look at who I was and why I am the way I am.  And I realized it was time to change.  It was time to find out who I am.

And as I find me, I find that while it’s terrifying sometimes to be vulnerable, there are great rewards to opening yourself up and just being real.  There’s love, and acceptance, and belonging.  And while I hope I don’t get hurt, if I do I will figure out how to deal with it as a real person.  Because I’m not perfect.  I never was, I never will be, and I don’t want to be.  I just want to be me!