I clearly do…cuz well…blogger.

But, do you share with people in your daily life?

I recently started reading “Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are” By Shauna Neiquist. It’s a 365 day devotional with short little daily triggers and recipes to get you thinking on your toes everyday. Todays lil tidbit was on sharing our stories with one another and I started thinking about the stories I share about my kids with the world.

“You tell what you know. What you’ve earned, what you’ve learned the hard way. You watch it fall on what seem to be deaf ears, and you mutter something under your breath, something about pearls before swing. But then ten years later you realize that one fragment of your story has now been woven into someone else’s, as a bridge to a new way of understanding and living.”

We as moms, we are always talking about our kids. We are proud of them, we delight in them, they are our hearts walking outside of our bodies who play in dirt and blow raspberries into their squash. But is it really helpful if I only tell you the sweet things my child does instead of the times he is just being the worst? THE WORST. I want to hear about your dirty dirt, mostly so it makes me feel better, but also so that it puts us on the same playing field and that again…it makes me feel better.

Im not really shy when it comes to sharing my highs and lows or tough challenges about being a mama of a tot and a baby. I’m not embarrassed to tell stories about my failures and I am totes not shy about shouting about my successes (obnoxious? probs) because they are what keep us trucking along. Sometimes these stories just flop off my tongue without any filters or mental awareness that maybe I should censor some things, like this past weekend I was at a baby shower and the mama to be opened up a “post natal survival kit” from her sister and she held up some pads and the first thing that came outta my mouth was “PUT THEM IN THE FREEZER”….don’t invite me to parties… I can’t be controlled.

Sometimes it’s hard to strike that balance between sharing the good and maybe oversharing the bad when people want to remain blissfully unaware. Aka childbirth stories and woes…down playing someones fears about their child because “you’ve been there and you know it’ll pass”…I’m totes guilty of this, sorry to anyone who i’ve guffed at and just said “its a phase, it’ll pass” because I know you are IN THAT PHASE NOW AND ITS NO FUN and you have every right to feel what you’re feeling. FEEL IT.

So then how do we decide what’s the right story to share at the right time so that maybe it will help? Psht, I dunno, and I’m not sure Ms. Niequist knows either, but she at least recommends we just keep telling our stories. That maybe 50% of the time well strike the right balance and the honesty we share with one another will help, maybe not today, but some day.

What do I take from this? That I should probably practice a higher level of censorship in public, but hey…someone from that shower is going to remember FREEZER…and that someone will be helped, and you are welcome.