Because for a while, I seemed to have lost them.

To explain, and make a short story even shorter, I’m in the midst of a HUGE photo inventory where I’m collecting all matter of photos from all matter of devices from the past couple of years, and printing them out to organise into photo albums. Yes, I still DO photo albums.

So I remembered I had a couple of photos on my facebook account that weren’t mine, uploaded by my family and friends, and so I went searching, one night earlier this week, through the years of 2012, 2013, and now, to find them.

What I found was astonishing. My journey had been for one thing, yet in the midst of it all, I had somehow accidentally though very appropriately discovered something completely different. Apt. I found that I once, had gusto. Guts. A loud voice. An opinion.

Balls, as such.

In amongst photos, and check-ins, and posters friends and family were putting up on my wall, I was looking at my past status updates… and wow. I actually had completely forgotten that I used to write like that. That that’s how I put my feelings and my thoughts out. A lot of it was just “BLAH!” An outburst, a sudden feeling that I clearly just hit ‘post’ on and let the world see what I was feeling at the time, with no censorship.

It was almost like reading about another person’s life. Reading these status updates, I was amazed, embarrassed and proud all at different times. Most of all, I was inspired. I was like ‘damn it! I wanna get back to that place.’

Without realising it, all this time I had lost it. I thought back to how, and why, and when it was that things changed. I think it was a combination of things. We’ve had life, we’ve had death, blah, blah – without trivialising any of those important life changes, I think those were some major factors that affected my habits. I got personal, secretive, and not willing to let the world, just ‘anyone’ into our private, intimate world of troubles, fears, hopes and joys. The world and all of its hurts and happiness,’ made me just a little withdrawn, just a little scared, of EVERYTHING. Both fear, and love, made me go into myself. Both of those emotions can make you feel so much.

That, along with the addition of some of my annoying facebook ‘friends’ posting shit like

“my 175 month old is just so cute today, I can just squash him!” (constant annoying posts about child and updates on them every 45 minutes)

“I am just so upset, I wanna die.” (attention seeker alert)

“I just went to the front door, and found a parcel waiting for me!” (grasping at straws, why are you posting vague bullshit?)

“my husband is just the best, I love him soooo much! (hiding the fact of marital woes)

(And then there are those that post 280 photos of their child’s first days in this world, which made me want to quite frankly NEVER upload photos of my baby girl).

All this pretense, and lying, and just whole lotta BS drove me right up the wall, and made me want to never in any way be like THEM.

(Life’s purpose: do not be a sheep).

I’m thinking now though, I can still be myself. I’ll never be like them, because I have more self-awareness. And yes, some may even say that blogging is also a pretense. However I think the blogging world, from what I’ve experienced of it anyway, is a lot more deeper than the superficiality and “look at me relaxing by the pool on the island getaway trip-of-a-lifetime holiday” showing-off that occurs on facebook, the bragging that often covers up things we never learn about.

I think of it in relation to myself. I have put up photos of myself, with Hubbie, with baby girl. And although everything looks great and all ideal in the photos, no one can see, no one knows of the background story: how for example, before we took that photo out during lunch on that gorgeous perfect Sunday, baby girl was cracking it at home because she was tired. I look good in the photos, but no one knows I was in my pyjamas ‘til 11:30am because I was doing dishes, rinsing washing, and kept changing baby girl’s nappy because she kept filling it up. We look refreshed, but that’s because we had coffee, and no one knows how she’s been getting up at night, and how it takes me 5 minutes just to creep out of her room at night and close the door quietly, in fear that any noise will wake her up and I’ll have to do the whole thing all over again – and that’s just the leaving the room part. Don’t ask me how I get her to sleep. We look put-together in that photo, but seriously, you should see our house, when we’re NOT expecting visitors. And I’m smiling, but you don’t want to enter my mind and hear the demons I’ve been struggling with for the past few weeks, the internal to and froes that’s made me seriously consider seeing a psychologist.

All of this, is not often spoken of. On facebook, certainly not. In the blogging world however, refreshingly it is.

I’ve diverged a bit. All in all, I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of being quiet. I’ve had enough of letting other’s crap affect the way I live my life. I’m coming out, in the most fantastic fashion, and I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone says anymore.

If I cause trouble, then so bloody be it. Better out than in.

The balls they are a swaying.