Open Brackets

The very first blog ever I wrote for MTW was published on 7^th November last year. I was brand new to the medium and had no idea what would happen once I pressed “publish.” Not that I did press it, having no understanding of the technology behind Blogger, or indeed, any technology. After a few pleading messages to Webmaster to the Stars and owner of Dundee’s finest gold-plated cutlery set, Wendy Jones, I was all set.

That first blog was all about authenticity. I’ve learned that all that glisters is not gold and all that you see on Facebook is not the actual truth. Quite the reverse. When I first moved to Suffolk, mother of two little boys, convinced that I was doing everything wrong and was a miserable failure, chirpy Facebook statuses like this would plunge me yet further into the depths of despair.

“Woke up at 6.00, did a couple of washes, hung them out on the line, made the children’s packed lunches, cooked breakfast, off to work!”

I took these statements at face value. Everyone was doing a better job than me and it didn’t matter how hard I tried, I’d be sure to drop a plate somewhere along the way. It took me years to realise that in spite of my parenting, the children would be all right as long as I loved them, fed them approximately three times a day and kept short accounts. So what if the laundry basket was overflowing, the floor covered in Lego, bricks and random plastic toys, the surfaces dusty and the washing up half-done? I wasn’t taking pictures of my house and broadcasting them on social media. Why would I?

Before we go any further, let me confess that I’ve found writing this blog incredibly hard. It’s taken ages and I’ve really struggled. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

Lock down is the perfect time to show off, it turns out. Many, many social media users are getting up early, putting on a wash, cooking a healthy breakfast for their families, doing Joe Wicks (as it very much were) at 9.30, baking, cooking, cleaning, taking up new hobbies, going on nature walks, home schooling their children, teaching themselves to crochet and so on and so forth. At the end of a long hard day of self-improvement, they cuddle up on the sofa with popcorn to enjoy a family film together. I know this because they post about it, constantly, with annoying hashtags.

Last month, I introduced you to Isabella M Smugge. Here’s what I imagine she would write:

“Up with the lark! How blessed I am to live in this beautiful place, which sings to my creative soul. After a simple repast of fresh fruit and yoghurt, I trip across the garden to my writing studio and spend the morning finishing my latest novel. At lunchtime, I bake some healthy treats for the family (no sugar is the rule in this household!) water my veg patch, make some bread and clean the house. Back to writing in the afternoon, keeping up with my fan mail and signing my many books, before enjoying a delicious home-cooked meal with my family. And so to bed!”

Annoying isn’t it?

Here’s mine:

“Awoke eventually after a night of weird dreams. Exhausted from involuntary cerebral activity. Tea and breakfast in bed courtesy of fantastic husband. Dribbled tea on duvet, to accompany egg stain from yesterday. Joined by daughter after husband vacated bed. Did some school work with her. Staggered out of bed, selected least stained clothing. Washed up. Put ingredients for bread in the bread maker. Watered the garden, hung out latest wash. Decided to be a good homemaker. Made bread, prepped rhubarb gin, made rhubarb syrup, picked over a kilo of blackcurrants.”

Let’s pause there for a sec. The first part I trust you can relate to. In the second, I am straying into Look At Me territory. So let’s open those brackets. 

Decided to be a good homemaker. (Brought laptop downstairs so I could play Popmaster while doing awful boring job of picking all the tiny stems and leaves out of the blackcurrants which I picked TWO YEARS AGO, froze and have been too busy to attend to. While opening cupboard door to get caster sugar and yeast out for bread, newly opened yeast packet dribbled a significant amount of its contents on to my laptop!!) Made bread, prepped rhubarb gin. (Sounds so Nigella, doesn’t it. I hate gin. Can’t stand the stuff. However, my cousin makes her own rhubarb gin every year and I love it. It’s the easiest thing in the world to make.) Made rhubarb syrup, picked over a kilo of blackcurrants. (To make more gin. Not jam as I probably should have done. Freezer contains a number of ice-cream cartons filled with gooseberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants which have been staring reproachfully at me for many a month. Picking over blackcurrants stains your hands red. Imagine how the kitchen looked by now).

So, there’s the reason I found writing this blog so hard. Yeast in my laptop. I shook most of it out, but the space bar kept jamming (it could be that the yeast was reacting with the dust down there) making fluid composition jolly difficult, I can tell you.

Everyone’s got at least one set of brackets, but lots of people make it their life’s work to hide them. Hence this (entirely fictional) post: “Made pancakes for children, took pictures of them eating them and posted on Facebook, went for walk with family, took lots of pictures and posted them, made sure children did loads of school work, took pictures and posted them. (“Had another terrible row with husband last night. Got up early to cook pancakes to make up for children crying. Went for a walk to get away from him. Feel that I am damaging the kids by exposing them to all the fighting, shouting and stress, but can’t let anyone know because they’d think less of me. I don’t know what to do. Likes and shares on my posts make me feel happy for a minute or two before I remember what my life is really like.”)

Do you see what I mean? We’ve all got brackets and if we share them, or at least some of them, our writing and our communications are more authentic. Perfect people terrify me – but there are no perfect people. The Bible is full of real people who messed up, who were afraid of what was to come, who were sure they weren’t good enough. And yet love transformed them. 

Being part of this group has taught me so much about honesty and authenticity. Just yesterday, Philippa Linton's blog was wonderfully, bravely honest and every day, a fellow MTW writer will teach me something.

It’s so easy to pretend, or to make things sound better than they really are. Honesty, letting your slip show and revealing the awful truth about a kitchen bake-a-thon is encouraging and, I hope, says to readers, “It’s not just you. We’re all in this together.”

Close brackets.

Images by Pixabay

Ruth is a freelance writer, speaker and poet. She is married with three delightful children, runs a catering company and keeps chickens and quail. She has her first novel in the editing stage, another two on the go, writes poetry as the mood takes her, writes for a number of Christian charities and has has her own business writing blogs for small Suffolk businesses. She is a recovering over-achiever who is now able to do the school run in her onesie most days. She blogs at @bigwordsandmadeupstories, covering topics as diverse as King Zog of Albania, a Christingle plagued by punch-ups and tummy upsets, and the inevitable decline of elderly parents. She has abnormally narrow sinuses and a morbid fear of raw tomatoes, but has decided not to let this get in the way of a meaningful life.