There is an idea I’ve been pondering over in my head lately.
I saw discussions brought to light, how everything on social media,
and especially in the slow living, cottage core communities is particularly fake.
That no one in real life is frolicking through the flower meadows,
hugging trees or talking to wild animals.
That stuff belongs to a Disney movie, but real life?
That’s slightly… strange and unrealistic.
And whilst I want to assure you that my life consists of very much mundane,
human problems, boring routines, bills and fulfilment of basic personal needs,
I also very much do frolic around in pretty dresses despite all that “realness” of real life.
I didn’t always live in this place.
My daily walks weren’t always in the ancient woods or amongst wildflowers.
For much of my life I lived in the city,
at some point even in an apartment infested with rats.
Life wasn’t always pretty, and of course that would be a lie to say that it was.
Someone also once told me that
“of course you can say all these things when you’re
surrounded by fields and nature, but not everyone has that”.
I am forever grateful for the countryside that surround me,
for the breath of fresh air I feel every day, for the vast expanses of nature
just as much as I was grateful for a tiny park near my flat in London,
old sycamores towering above my head and a quick train
to any part of the city when I fancied an adventure.
We think that when we move to this idyllic place, we will be suddenly a different person.
But what we forget is that the being you are in another place,
is the same one that will be moving to the iddilic one.
We will still have to face our own inner story, work through the same fears
and issues and traumas that we carry across no matter where we go.
When I moved here, breathed out
I found all that baggage of emotions that I carried with me that was now due to unpacking.
How we portray our lives - it’s just a picture.
I guess we have this idea of what “normal” should look like,
that when we see something different, hear ideas that might sound foreign at start,
we think they must be fake.
And of course sometimes that might be true,
which is when we also have to use our own judgement.
Sometimes people say that what we see online is all untrue and unrealistic,
but if you think about it, how much of other people’s lives do you actually see in real life?
How much do you know the person closest to you?
How much of yourself do you expose to others?
The vulnerabilities, the messiness, the lows which inevitably happen from time to time.
We wear our masks and conveniently change them going from home to work,
from a distant acquaintance to the closest friend.
We grow a thick skin, put on a tough exterior
in order to go through life which is not always pretty,
without letting anyone around us know what we’re really going through.
But isn’t that the same thing as showing mostly the beautiful side of life online?
The softness I feel underneath my feet as I walk through the mossy ground,
the fresh air I breath as I stand on top of a hill looking far into the distance,
the wind in my tangled hair, the smell of herbs and wildflowers -
all are real, all are here and I see them.
I share them not because I made them up,
but because they’re part of who I want to be whenever I choose to take off the tough mask
and simply be playful.
I’m playing with my life, not in any kind of detrimental way.
Just.. there is so much to feel and see and explore, and it’s.. beautiful,
when you feel brave and safe to open up and expose your tender heart.
That safety… within yourself, within your mind and your reality.
That’s something I wish to feel always, and wish for you, and everyone around.
Safety to be whoever you want to be, to be as vulnerable or strong,
to be as real or as magical, to feel joy from your reality or from your imagined fairytale,
you step by step turn into real life.
It’s all so different for all of us.
But we all have the capacity to see the beauty and turn magic into real life.