The Trouble With Being Real, #BeReal, #1000Speak

I usually do a

#1000Speak

topic reveal here, on my blog, a few days to a week before the 20th of every month. I didn’t do one for July.

Perhaps that’s because it is summertime and there’s a lot going on. It’s possible I forgot. Or, maybe, just maybe I couldn’t narrow down a topic.

This month’s subject is “acceptance” and I struggle to accept a lot of things, including myself, on a daily basis.

I am scared to let down my guard with people and in my own head. I don’t know what I deserve. I don’t know how to fully accept and embrace who I am, in this given moment in time.

It’s been a movement lately:

#BeReal,

In a world so quick to judge, just #BeReal,

and

The Village Needs To #BeReal

I am on the periphery of the physical stuff this is referring to. I don’t take selfies and I am not even on Instagram or Snapchat.

I include a photo when and where I can, here, but I don’t know how to embrace and accept myself, in these ways, when I can’t even see myself.

this photo is of brian, dad and you on the stairs in front of the apple.

I am not alone on this line of thinking. Here another visually impaired woman says it better, in one short blog post, than I probably will here:

A Thousand Words Are Worth More Than One Picture

I know acceptance must be a deeper thing than the physical and the visual. I guess I have an advantage, not to be distracted by the rest of it. I guess, but I don’t feel let off the hook – not really.

I am all about being real, as the hash tag prods. I don’t like anything I sense to be shallow or fake. I get very uncomfortable around such pretences and I tend to grow critical. I don’t like that I am so, but I guess we all are, in a way.

I want us all to be our authentic selves, but I can hardly not start with me.

I know I am genuine and all that, but how to accept who, what, and where I am, at this current moment, is the hardest of the hard tasks I ask myself to complete. Yes, I expect that I should complete it, but I know it’s the ultimate work-in-progress.

A lot of the blogging world can be unreal. It is a bunch of humans, but they are hiding behind their computers, fiercely typing away. Then, images are sent out into the world. Back to the blog to try and #BeReal for anyone who happens to read.

Any real connections that are made are usually far beyond me, but not always.

I don’t get distracted by the perfect beach photos plastered all over social media, of celebrities posing for the camera because it’s their job. I don’t know how to look like any spiffed-up version of myself. I don’t even know, from day to day, what I look like in my bathroom mirror.

I don’t wear makeup, not trying to impress anybody. I don’t wear it, because I am not afraid of stepping out in public with blotches and circles under my eyes. Or perhaps, I don’t know but that I should be afraid.

I don’t simply capture moments in time where all’s well. I come here to be as real as real can be. I wish I had more freedom in the rest of the world to do the same.

I wish I weren’t so paralyzed by fear and concern. I don’t accept this status, as it is. I won’t accept anything like what I have accepted in the past. I will be real with myself and anyone else who thinks they can handle it.

I think I can be me, whatever that is, and then I will attract what I put out into the universe.

Words are my most valuable tool in a world of photoshopped images. I can be real with words. I can write about the parts of myself I find hardest to accept and those I know full well are my greatest assets.

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

–Serenity Prayer