Let Me 'Splain

Can we talk?

Here's the thing about the gray: It's always there, but it's not alone. Those brighter colors are there too, and not just to cover up the darkness. Those colors are just as honest - they aren't lies. It's just that lately, I feel like those bright colors? They're all I'm letting show, and I feel like that IS a lie.

When I sit down at the computer and think about blogging, I have two main options: I can write about the good, or I can write about the bad. Sometimes the choice is an easy one for me, because the good is just too good not to share. When that happens, I feel good, because I feel like everyone wins: I get a chance to celebrate the things in my life that are going really well, and you all get to read something cheerful from a blogger who used to have nothing but pain.

And therein lies the real problem - the real reason I've been hiding the gray. I shared my depression from the very beginning, pretty openly and explicitly at times. And as I started to heal, I shared that too, and the little victories along the way. So now, I've convinced myself that that's what you want to read about - all the ways I'm better. But I'm hiding all the ways that I'm still struggling.

Well frankly, I think that's a load of crap, and I'm calling myself on it. If anyone out there were reading me under caveat that I stay happy at all times, well, that person probably left after the last post. Some of you have only begun reading me recently, but many of you have stuck it out for the long haul. Aly and Sassy have been dear friends for over a year now; Sandra was one of the first people I emailed about my hospitalization, and Julia's been with me since only slightly after that; and there are countless more I can't even begin to mention who've been by my side through thick and thin. So who am I to think that you'll all turn and run at the revelation that I'm not perfectly happy all the time?

I've been told by numerous people that what is good about my blog is the sincerity, the honesty. So I'm going to try to be more honest about how I'm feeling. If I feel like letting out some of the gray, then I will - no more sweeping it under the rug out of some weird sense of obligation. That way, when I feel like letting out the happy colors, it'll feel genuine.

Deal?