Being Honest

It happened the other night. I was miserable. My flu symptoms came back – aches, thudding head, fever. Plus it was hot, so hot that a heat warning was issued for our area. Plus only one of our ACs was working – the other decided to leak into our landlady’s apartment and we had to turn it off and take it out. Plus Movie Dictator and I had an idiotic fight.

Did I mention I was miserable? I hid in the bedroom – the only vaguely cool room in the apartment – and Movie Dictator insisted on stewing in his office, and all of this made me think about blogs and how we often try to present the best and cutest versions of our lives in our posts. At this point, I rely on blogs to keep in touch with many of my friends. And I swear, judging from the blogs, they all seem to have perfect lives, perfect relationships, perfect children, perfect houses...

And I’m guilty of the same.

Part of it, of course, is the issue of privacy. Blog is not a diary, and no one wants the deeply intimate and possibly troubling details of their lives to be available to strangers. Or acquaintance. Or even friends sometimes.

And yet, and yet…as I read all the impossibly cute posts adorned with the impossibly cute pictures, I start getting a sense that all my friends are leading idyllic lives. They never fight with their partners. They never cry. They never consider therapy or worry about their health. And then, I go and add my own impossibly cute stories and pictures, and my friends are probably thinking I’m leading the perfect life as well – never fight, never cry, never consider therapy… Am I living a lie?

Not that these posts aren’t true. They are. It’s more about what I omit.

But of course, I have to omit things. This blog is a public thing. It’s not even anonymous. By now, it’s linked to my “official” website and anyone can read it and figure out who I am. Editors, booksellers, book-festival organizers, other writers, potential readers. Which is to say, I can’t be self-indulgent, or gossipy, or snarky. Nor can I complain about my old Somerville landlord -- oh, if only you knew how much I want to complain about him! – and how much he contributed to the misery of this past week. Nor would I want to bitch about Movie Dictator – who, apart from that one idiotic fight we had, has been an angel.

Maybe there’s no solution. Maybe everyone has to reach his or her own balance, decide how much private information he/she is willing to divulge. I’d be curious to hear how others who have “public” blogs are dealing with this. Or those who went from private to public ones. Do you miss the anonymity?

But it’s not just about blogs. I’ve been in America for almost 15 years now, but I still feel it – people here are kind of reserved. Too reserved. And I’ve learned to be reserved as well. The way I understand it, it’s either a matter of politeness – people are afraid to burden their friends with their problems – or it’s a matter of appearances – people wanting to pretend their lives are better than they are. For me, it’s both. That’s not to say that heart-to-heart conversations never happen. They do. But sometimes it takes a while to establish that degree of trust. And even then there are limits and boundaries. Sometimes, we are more likely to talk about a health condition – a UTI or an IBS – than about couples’ counseling. And as for sex, no one ever has problems in that department.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my best and oldest friend in Russia. We’d known each other since we were twelve. She told me she would never need therapy. If something was wrong with her life, she’d go to her girlfriends and they’d comfort her. That’s right. Comfort. Having left Moscow in 1992, I’m hardly an expert on its current culture. But what she said felt true. There was always a culture of lament in Russia. People would lament their personal lives, their work situation, their living conditions, the country in general, and it wasn’t considered shameful or anything. It was normal. We used to say that a real friend is someone you can call in the middle of the night if you’re having a hard time. I have some wonderful close friends here, but the only person I would dare to call in the middle of the night is my sister. (Because she’s family and won’t disown me : )

And now, in the spirit of honesty, I should reveal some things I’m not terribly proud of or happy about:

1) I’m currently reading a book called The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook. With a pencil in hand.

2) My health is freaking me out, and it’s not just the flu symptoms. I don’t know what it is. Maybe anxiety. Maybe a combination of things. I can’t go to my regular doctor, because she’s all the way in Boston and because I don’t like her and because she’ll prescribe antibiotics, which I don’t want, or send me in for tests – i.e., more trips to Boston. Instead, I have an acupuncture/Chinese medicine appointment on Monday, which is something that’s expensive and that I use as a last resort.

3) It’s been a month since we moved to Connecticut, and I’ve done almost no writing. I’m scattered, distracted, poorly organized, and I’m hating myself for it. In fact, I’ve done almost nothing since last summer – apart from some more or less serious Chicken edits. My novel’s been languishing. Not because I’ve been avoiding it, but because I can’t quiet my mind enough. There’s always something that’s taking priority: teaching, job search, paying bills, buying groceries, having a long conversation with Movie Dictator. I feel like I’ve wasted a year somehow (I still measure time in school years) – especially when I think of my amazing writer friends who've managed to finish drafts of their novels while adjuncting at multiple schools or giving birth to multiple babies.

Anyway... I think this should be enough for the first dose of truthfulness. What do you think? And now that I’ve confessed some of these things, I can go back to writing cute posts about my idyllic life in Connecticut.