Let's Be Real

So many infertility bloggers understandably keep their blogs anonymous. They go about their daily lives and no one knows whats going on. Obviously, this is not me. I started this blog long before I knew I was infertile, long before we were even thinking about trying. From the very beginning I wanted this to be a place where I could be real.

The name of this blog has a purpose: Genuine Greavu; a reminder to myself to be authentic, not to put on my best face. When the time came to decide what to do about all of the trying to conceive mess, I had some serious anxiety about going public. It seems like no big deal now, but that first night I posted, I asked Sam about a hundred times if I should press "publish" or not. But ultimately, I decided that this was a HUGE part of my life (didn't know how huge at the time, but still) and that I wasn't being true to myself if I kept everything sugar-coated here. By the time I went public, I had begun to heal from the miscarriage. It still hurt like crap, but I wasn't a puddle on the floor anymore. I also wanted to speak out because I knew that somewhere there had to be someone going through that, literally in the valley of the shadow of death, and if I could walk beside them, maybe I could find some purpose and make a friend along the way.

Interestingly enough, I've stayed true to my goal and been very honest here. I've probably offended my fair share of readers with some of my thoughts, which is obviously not my goal, but this is a space where I lay it all out. Sometimes life is beautiful, but sometimes life is a mess. Either way I want to be real. The problem lies in life, I mean away from this blog, am I real? Sam sees the real me for sure. He sees the moody, pessimistic, hormonal beast that shares his bed. But beyond that, am I real with the people I encounter every day?

The interesting thing about publicly sharing the ends and outs of infertility is that the people that you bump into, do life with, etc all know. Literally I sometimes post a blog, forget about it, and then 3 hours later have a friend give me a hug and say "I just read your blog". Oh. Yea, about that. "I'm fine." That has been my response when anyone asks how I'm doing. "I'm fine." Sam will tell you this is my go to response even when tears are streaming down my face. I have no idea why I go there when people obviously already know that no, I'm not fine, I'm a mess. Why do I feel the need to look neat and together in real life when I can openly and honestly admit that I'm drowning on here? All too often, the readers and real life participants are the same. There is no hiding.

I'm trying to stop this. I'm trying to be more honest in real life. I certainly don't want to unload on some unsuspecting person in real life. I get that not everyone has time for the full length saga that is my life when they ask "how are you?" But the people that I do life with, the people who I know are "in the know" who ask, I'm trying to be more open and honest. Even on my good days, even when I'm optimistic about our future, "fine" doesn't cover it.

So, if I know you in real life, let this serve as your warning: if you're asking "how are you?"and looking for "fine, how are you?" maybe you should say "how 'bout them dawgs?" instead and we can happily launch into a surface level discussion about bowl game dreams. And that's fine by me. I get that not every person I bump into at Target or meet on Sunday morning is looking for a status update on my uterus.

I will of course continue to be real, to be raw, to be authentic here on the blog. But I'm also going to try to drop "I'm fine" from my vocabulary. For those of you who are public on your blogs, how do you handle the duality of blog life and real life?