If I was more honest, I would tell you that I’m way behind. I’m behind on my job, behind on writing this, behind on writing something else, behind on school, behind on spending time with my family and behind on caring for my community.
I feel like I’m behind on life. I should be so much further ahead. I do and do and care and run and do and care way too much and in the end it doesn’t even add up. Am I just faking this? Am I even doing the right things? The important things? Or do I just sabotage myself? So I can then feel behind?
Maybe I’m exactly where I should be. Maybe I’m just standing in my own way.
If I was more honest, I would say I’m sometimes lonely. I’d rather be alone than with someone who’s not good for me, but finding a person to hold on to really sucks.
But I would probably admit that I haven’t tried all that hard. I haven’t put in the time to find someone great and so I don’t deserve someone great just yet. Mostly because I’m busy being behind.
Sparks don’t always fly when you meet someone and even when they do they don’t always catch fire. And sometimes they catch fire but you soon realize you’re the only one sitting by it and so you say “okay” and you put it out and you leave and you try to find sparks elsewhere.
I got tired of chasing sparks. It makes me feel even more behind. So I just sit by my own fire and work and do, so I feel a little less behind. But I’m still behind.
If I was more honest, I would take a break and admit that I’m scared of the future. Yes, I have a plan and yes, I mostly stick to it, but that doesn’t mean all this uncertainty isn’t driving me nuts.
The world is a giant race full of machines trying to beat yesterday’s machines, machines trying to beat humans and, worst of all, humans trying to beat humans. Always. All the time. And fast. Does my plan even make sense? Will it tomorrow?
Anxious parents send anxious kids to anxious teachers who follow anxious leaders and later become anxious parents themselves. No one has a clue what’s coming. I don’t either.
If I was more honest, I wouldn’t use so many stock photos. I’d just take a picture with the shitty front camera of my iPhone, me sitting in my chair in my pajamas, unshaved, with messy hair and glasses and stick it right on top of the post. But I’m never sure if it “works.” I’m never sure if it’s professional enough. And I’m never sure that if I do, does that make me fake because I did it to be “authentic?”
So way too often, I stick the real pictures inside the post or don’t post them at all and the title images continue to look beautiful but none of that answers my question: What does it even mean to be honest when I write? Where is the line? Is there a line?
If I was more honest, I would tell you that I’m even afraid to write this because I really don’t have a reason to complain. I have a happy family, a handful of great friends and I can achieve anything I want if only I work hard enough long enough. That’s more than 99% of people have. Family, friends, opportunity.
The family thing alone feels like it should be a birth right. But it’s not. A strong family is the most basic element of a functioning society, a functioning nation, a functioning world — and more people lack it than ever before. Why is that? I don’t know.
But because I have it everyone always thinks I’m the sane one. For the most part, I am. But it doesn’t mean I never have days where I’m down, days where nothing’s working, days where I just want to give it all up and start over. I’m very lucky and very aware of it but it feels like now I have to smile all the time and be strong and be there for everyone and hold their hand. That gets heavy.
I never ask for it but sometimes it’d be nice if someone just came along and said “Hey, let me hold your hand this time.” I might not even let them but it’d make me feel better.
If I was more honest, I’d never have to use the phrase “if I was more honest.” I wouldn’t have to write it out in bursts like this or muster up the courage to preface announcements with “honestly, if I’m really honest or to be honest with you.” I’d just blubber out the truth, all the time. Because I wouldn’t care what you think. Or he thinks. Or she thinks.
I wouldn’t listen to songs about honesty 177 times in a row and then think: “You know what? It’d probably be good to write something very honest.” I’d just do it all the time and it’d make me feel a lot better every time I did.
If I was more honest, I’d be better with people. I’d tell them they’re lazy when I think they’re lazy and that they’re great and I envy them when they’re great and I envy them. I would share more of my mistakes and the problems that trouble me and maybe it’d help them avoid making and having the same ones. I would feel compelled to apologize a lot less. I would call people out more. Challenge them. In fact, I would probably dare to ask you:
If you were more honest, what would you say?
If I was more honest, I wouldn’t put a fancy pitch for my email newsletter at the end of each post. I would just tell you that you giving me your email address is one of the very few chances I have of making a living at the thing I love. Writing. Because I can contact you now. Directly. There’s no middle man. And I can just talk to you and send you things and ask you questions and the occasional favor.
I would tell you that it’s no pressure and that all I’m trying to do is write stuff that’s worth your time and if all you want to do is read more of it for free for the rest of your life then that’s fine by me. But if one day I ask you to buy something from me and you think it’ll help you and you buy it then maybe, just maybe, one day I can make a living from writing and that would make me really happy.