The Dining Room Table (#TransparentTuesday)

I recently spoke with a woman who, upon visiting a friend unannounced, was delighted to find that her friend's house was messy.  "It made me feel better," she admitted.  "Sometimes I think I'm the only one who doesn't always have it together."

For the record, can I say that nobody always has it together?  It's impossible.

We can lean in, Sheryl-Sandberg-style, or stress out, or lose sleep, but inevitably, we all reach a point when life spirals beyond our capacity (however large that capacity is) and our environment reflects that chaos.

Given this, I want to push back on the lie that other people, whether real or hypothetical, are somehow doing life better -- whether more creatively, intelligently, efficiently, or neatly -- than we are.  The blunt truth is more to this effect: Periodically, we're all hot messes.  It's unwise to compare our deficiencies, which we know all too well, with other people's successes, which could be entirely and wonderfully real, but sometimes instead are simply imagined on our behalf or constructed on theirs.

This month, I plan to post a weekly picture that captures a real moment with the hashtag #TransparentTuesday.  The goal isn't to boast in my own shortcomings, but rather to acknowledge reality.  No filters, no editing, no censoring.

My inaugural picture is a throwback from last month when my dining room table was swallowed by Legos.  (Though I must say that the best part of the picture is that it captures two of my three children, quite literally, trying to climb up the wall.)

#TransparentTuesday.  Life is real, my dear friends.  Let's not believe otherwise.