...kinda like Anne Frank... only not Jewish... okay, Nothing like Anne Frank.

It's funny, to me. I've had blogs before. I've kept a journal from the moment I knew how to draw. As far as I was concerned, I didn't need words to express myself. Pictures could do that for me. (Hilarious, now. Considering that my words get used quite often.) So, I have another blog. wherethenoiseis.blogspot.com I use that one to write primarily about my children. But, in the famous words of Toby Keith- I wanna talk about ME.
I wonder how much of what we write gets censored. I think I always assumed that someday my journals would be published (like Anne Frank) and I could only write what I would want other people reading. That's kind of what we do with Facebook, right? I mean, I read status updates and see people that I know personally living seemingly perfect lives. Their children are happy and healthy. They are overwhelmingly in love with their "boo" (which, for the record, is a term of endearment that I find more annoying than endearing. I call my youngest child "baby boo"... that's as far as I'm going). They put on a happy face for pictures and act as though everything is perfect. Why do people think it's not okay to not be happy?? I blame Facebook. Social networking in it's entirety, really.  Our insatiable need to "keep up with the Joneses" is only magnified when we actually see Mr. and Mrs. Jones every day online, smiling, holding baby Jones next to their huge (of course REAL) Christmas tree... or when Mrs. Jones updates with a wall photo of the "beautiful flowers my boo had delivered... just because. <3 #luckiestgirlintheworld". Okay, so I'm hating. And admittedly I get a little (maybe a tad more than little) envious when I see these "perfect" people with their "perfect" lives... (and it's even MORE hilarious because two of my favorite people in the world really ARE the Joneses and they have no problems acknowledging their own- and eachother's- shortcomings). I digress. Many of us see these people and feel like we should be just as happy as they are. Don't we have the right?? Why should they be any happier than we are?? So, we lie. We smile and pose for the camera, exclaiming "PROFILE PIC!!" then update immediately. To show how happy we are, of course. We "check in" every where we go. To show we have a life, right? We write statuses about how much we love our parents, how children nowadays have it so easy, how our children are everything to us, how we have the best friends in the whole wide world, and how sad it is that -insert name of random celebrity- recently -got divorced, died, is back in rehab-. And I'm as guilty as anyone. The one thing I'm not gonna do- paint an unrealistic (not to mention untrue) perfect picture. It's okay to not be happy sometimes. That doesn't make you depressing. It makes you REAL. I love all three of my children so incredibly much. But sometimes being a stay at home mom will drive you up the wall. I "book face" so often because sometimes it seems like it's my only link to the outside world (hello out there....). I don't know what I want relationship-wise. I KNOW what's best for me. I know what I SHOULD do. I know what I would advise someone else to do, in my situation. But, that doesn't mean that I've yet found the strength in me to do anything about it. Because there's something in me that believes, not that you can change a person, but that there is true and genuine goodness in everyone and eventually, that goodness will overcome the bad... the hurtful... But, I could be wrong. And ya know what?? I'm no more unhappy than all 500-something "friends" of mine. (Well, I'm probably more miserable than Miss Happy-all-the-damned-time Crissy Megow... you want to hate her for having such a perfect life, but she's just completely un-hateable... so you just smile thinking about how happy you are FOR her and her husband... and their four children... for having eachother. It's beautiful.) But, here's the news flash: When Mrs. Jones posts pictures of those amazing flowers from her "boo"... it's because he's making up for never being home. She cries herself to sleep at night because she's alone. With the baby. All the time. He's never around. And he thinks the flowers can make up for it. They'll be divorced in 5 years time when he catches her running around with the pool boy (how cliche), and everyone will gawk in utter disbelief because "everything always seemed so perfect" and "they were always so happy"... Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe everyone else really is that happy. Maybe I'm in depresso-mode today. Eh. It is what it is. But this blog is gonna be real. Uncensored. (beware.) And if YOU are one of those seemingly happy people, but you really hate your life- I'm not saying you need to update your status to "My husband is a douchebag" or "I want to sell my children to the zoo" or "I hate my husband's ex wife!!"... I'm just saying, make the rest of us feel a little more normal and stop pretending like your life is something out of Ladies Home Journal or something. Thanks.