FYI: Instagram is not my real world, this is.

Instagram is not my real world, this is:

After a number of e-mails and notes about my “amazing”  instagram account, I thought I had better come clean -This week I went to a laundromat with my twins.

It was the first time in years I had been to one, and I found the experience humbling and actually very zen. Our washing machine blew up and we had seven loads of washing to do after a big trip away.

You know, sitting there watching the colours swirl around and having to let go, and chill was good for us, cathartic even. Being forced to wait for something was healthy for all of us. (I’m serious). It reminded me of my university days at Adelaide University when I went there every week. Very calm.

About an hour after arriving home, my daughter started screaming that there was a redback spider outside her bedroom window.

Thinking there was no way that was possible, and she had no doubt made an error of judgement, I waltzed in casually, to see not one but 3 redback spiders ready to launch into our home and join the family, and not in a good way.

I jumped a metre in the air, she screamed, I screamed, my son screamed, and we proceeded to spray an entire can of bug spray on the three spiders, to drown them. We succeeded.

When we finally breathed – or rather chokingly coughed- a sigh of relief we then saw another one INSIDE the house and by that time we had run out of spray having used the whole can on the other three, so had to jump in the car, race to the supermarket, come home and spray the entire house.

I was frazzled, the kids were manic, and by the time we were finished, we were unable to sit in the house as the multiple cans of bug spray had rendered it temporarily uninhabitable. It wasn’t pleasant. We went to our local pizza joint, Christo’s (a place we all love)  to breath – and eat. You see, this is my real life.

The reason I am writing about my real world is to point out it does exist, really. I have been receiving a lot of notes lately asking how I have such a supposedly “fabulous, flawless life” being a single mum, and isn’t it hard?

Well, the answer is yes, damn hard. Horrendous some days. Those real sides to life that are kind of ugly, stressful, not so sexy experiences are part of my every day just as they are a part of everyone’s. It’s just, I don’t talk about them much.

And I certainly don’t take photos of THAT.

And you wont see any of the above on my Instagram, Facebook or snapchat accounts, and why would you? I don’t think you’ll see much of it on anyone else’s either.

I don’t know that people want to see someone sitting in a laundromat or with a can of bug spray on social media.

Much like The Wizard Of Oz, Instagram is a chance for all of us to create the aspirational life we dream of, and frame our lives to be as fabulous, easy and carefree as we possibly can.

One of my mottos is that life is all about how you frame it.

So I am still not only committed to seeing everything in as positive a light as possible, and to celebrating the big and small wins in life, but also to posting them to share with my audience to remind us all that so many things in life are possible if we go after them.

Never let go of your dreams. You are never too old, fat, thin, poor, or whatever.

Just don’t expect to see the flat side, the underbelly of my own life online- me putting out the garbage, me after a long haul flight in economy (horrific!), with the flu or any other time I’m not at my best.

 

But trust me, I’m sitting behind the curtain of Instagram, just like the Wizard not with a megaphone in hand, but my iphone, editing the parameters of my life to make it all appear as peachy as possible. And for me, so far, it works. Live your life, chase your dreams, think outside the square, nothing works without change. Set yourself free.