How often do you mop?  That was the question staring me down. There was a few of us chatting when my dear friend presented the question to us. On a deeper side note, isn’t it interesting how we check in with each other, essentially asking, “am I doing this right? Am I measuring up compared to each of you?” Anyway… Back to the conversation.

Of course, I was not the first one to answer. Why? Because only the person who mops regularly is going to speak up immediately. She’s confident, she knows she has the right answer. If you drop something on her floor, you can extend the 5-second rule to 5-minutes. She’s that good. I am not.

And so I had this moment where I had to decide if I wanted this secret out. I considered lying for about 2 seconds and then reminded myself that that was not me. But for the briefest moment, being a liar was looking slightly more appealing than being the dirty-floor mom. I didn’t want to be judged or find out how short I measured on the yardstick of homemaking and motherhood. Ignorance, in this case, was apparently bliss. But the bliss was no longer, the curtain or rather, the soapy mop water had been spilled.

So, there I was confessing my truth, and also… That they should never, ever eat off my floors. And here’s the beautiful thing. There were others who were bad about mopping too. Although in full disclosure, I was definitely the worst offender in this non-mopping gang.

And I know that this is a silly and small thing unless of course you mop nightly and then this may be horrendous to you. But I’m just going to pretend that we’re both cool with my bad-mopping habits and move forward to the bigger lesson this taught me about what we need from each other.

We need to see each other’s flaws. We need to know that we’re all operating as real-beautiful flawed-humans.

It’s not as obvious these days.

My friend Valerie McKeehan said it best during one of our chats when she shared that; “we use to open a magazine and see a beautifully styled tablescape, and we’d think pretty and know that it was designed just for that photoshoot. Now, we open Instagram and we see the same gorgeously styled tables and we’re made to believe that this is what real life should be like… A styled magazine ad. Who can keep up?”

How much of our perception of what life is supposed to look like it’s coming from someone else’s curated and styled version of the version of life that they are showing?

The truth is, life is messy. And we desperately need to know that we’re all works in progress and that we’re in this together.

We desperately need to see that others don’t have it all together either. What hope might we be depriving a fellow sister, if we lead her to believe that we’ve got it all together?

What could happen if we shared more of the real, more of the vulnerable? I’m not suggesting we go post the skeletons in our family closet. When we have the opportunity to be vulnerable; or to pretend that we’ve got it all together, which will be our default?