People on Facebook who complain all of the time drive me crazy—so crazy, in fact, that I’ve taken to either A. blocking them or B. unfriending them altogether. There’s only so many times I can hear about you whining about being bored or not getting into some concert without wanting to take a blowtorch to my eyes, mmkay?
But lately, as I become friends with many more hippie unschooling moms—whom I love, by the way—I am bombarded with nothing but happy messages. And it would be okay if it didn’t sound so damn smug. “I made homemade salt and a dozen hand-sewn diapers today and I am so blessed and I wouldn’t have it any other way!” is lovely until you hear it every. Single. Day. I’m not even on Facebook as much as I used to be—which I like; I have a few moments of fun, check in, update my author’s status and check out—and I still see these shiny happy statuses everywhere I look.
The thing is, I believe them. I know they are true, because in the moments when life is not shiny and happy—the moment when your three-year-old defiantly crunches pretzels all over the carpet while you are in a conference call training interns and just looks at you like, “What!”—you aren’t going to be posting on Facebook for sure, so why would you report it to the world? You get on when you have a few moments to spare in sweet silence, probably unwinding with that cup of hot tea you promised yourself six hours ago.
