It's all completely fabulous! by Ruth Leigh

Welcome to my life. Three beautiful children, perfect marriage, idyllic country location, lots of friends, chickens pecking around the veg patch.

My made-up life, that is. The one I’d like everyone to see.

As a writer, I find myself composing short, punchy bios of myself for each new client. It’s tempting to focus on the lovely bits, making myself sound more sorted than I am. Children. Marriage. Countryside. Friends. Chickens. Gosh, my life is AWESOME!

Just between us (and I think I can trust you to keep this to yourself), it’s true. I have got three children. But they’re human, so they leave their stuff all over the house (I had to move one slipper, a pile of Sharpies and a duvet from my writing chair when I sat down to compose this), sometimes to forget to clean out their budgies and even have the temerity to disagree with me from time to time.

My husband and I first met at 16 and we’ve been married for 26 years. But from time to time we disagree on things. He leaves his socks on the floor quite a lot. I open the bread in a weird way (other people’s lives, eh?)

We do live in a beautiful part of the world. The down side is that our broadband is ludicrously slow and unreliable and when there’s a storm, the power lines blow down. And it smells horrible sometimes as what we term “the poo lorry” (household compost) trundles up our lane at least once a week on its way to the farm.

I’m blessed with wonderful, supportive, loving friends. But my heart has been dented and bruised by false friends, betrayals and disappointment. It hurts me when my friends suffer and of late, many of them have been having a really rough time.

If you drove past our house, you might stop and gaze at our cockerel, Rocky, strutting his stuff while his ladies take dust baths and cluck away to themselves. Every day, I collect a handful of eggs, some pale brown, some deep chocolate colour and some blue and green. But chickens need feeding and cleaning out and sometimes they get ill.

My last bio ran thus: “Ruth Leigh is a writer, poet, inspirational speaker and caterer[1]. She lives in the beautiful Suffolk countryside with her husband, three children and ten chickens[2]. She makes her own jams and chutneys[3], has a morbid fear of fresh tomatoes and loves nothing more than curling up with a good book in front of the fire.[4]”

It’s all too easy to put a gloss on life for public consumption, but I’ve learned it’s good to let your slip show from time to time. I love this verse. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29). 

These words leave no space for bragging about what you’ve got, or where you live, or how perfect your life is. Looking outwards rather than inwards, encouraging those around you with the generosity of honesty and truth is hard in this world of filters and inspirational influencers. You don’t see many dusty corners or piles of washing on Instagram. It’s the same for writers. It’s so easy to focus on the good, the shiny, the inspiring, taking difficult challenges and putting a spin on them. There’s nothing wrong with drawing from the dark places of our lives to help and encourage those who read our words. But I have to keep an eye on my tendency to over-embellish the good things in favour of the truth.

So, here it is. My skirting boards are grimy, my windowsills are in dire need of a paint and my garden needs weeding. But if you dropped round unexpectedly, I’d welcome you in with open arms, make you a cup of tea and listen to what you had to say. If you wanted to offload, I’d listen. I’d aim to build you up according to your needs and forget all about false perfection. It’s been a hard lesson to learn, but a good one. God has poured out his love on me, a good measure, pressed down. The very least I can do in return is to peel off the filter, calm down the adjectives and be generous with my truth.

It’s not all completely fabulous. But it’s pretty good, just the same.

Ruth is a freelance writer, inspirational speaker and poet. She is married with three delightful children, runs a Spanish catering company, and keeps chickens, quail and guineafowl. She has her first novel in the editing stage, writes poetry as the mood takes her, writes on a freelance basis for several Christian charities and has just started her own business writing blogs for small Suffolk businesses. She is a recovering over-achiever, keeps meaning to slow down and is now able to do the school/college run in her pyjamas most days.

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[1] Indeed she is. Sounds impressive doesn’t it? But you should see the bags under her eyes.

[2] It’s 9 chickens now. One died.

[3] But is no Nigella.

[4] Which she manages to do about twice a year. See first footnote.