As some of you already know, my son Brenden spent last night at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth. Yesterday afternoon he started having trouble breathing, as has happened a few times before. When the albuterol breathing treatments didn’t work, Jenny took him to Cook’s urgent care center in Hurst that evening. Numerous treatments there didn’t solve the problem, so they sent him to the main hospital via ambulance so they could monitor his oxygen levels enroute.

I had to work at 11pm in Dallas. Picture me there, getting occasional phone calls and texts from Jenny telling me that the treatments aren’t working, my son still can’t breathe, and my two-year-old and Jenny are taking an ambulance to the children’s ER. I couldn’t do a thing to help.

While sitting at work, awash in tension, a friend walks by and asks how my kids are. It’s kinda like the standard “how are you?” question that Americans use as a greeting, except “how are the kids?” is more personal and a better conversation starter. But I didn’t want to tell him that my son was struggling for air and on his way to the hospital, and my poor wife was already up later than normal with no prospect of sleep in sight. I assumed that my buddy was just being friendly and didn’t want to hear the unpleasant truth. So I lied and said they were doing fine. We ended up talking about Brenden’s pottytraining instead, with me putting a positive spin on the fact that we hadn’t quite succeeded yet.

It’s so much easier not to be real.

Different people approach “real” in different ways. For many, as mentioned in the article I mentioned, our lack of perfection (as determined by the media, our friends, our families, or other sources) is so discouraging that we can’t help but feign happiness as a defense mechanism. Being real, admitting our failure to measure up to an impossible standard, is far too scary. We fear that people will turn from us, kick us out, or gossip about us.

I’ve struggled with that problem a bit, especially as a teenager. I’ve always considered myself a shy person. Through various and dubious sources, I came to view my shyness as a liability. Being outgoing and friendly was the ideal, so I didn’t measure up. I was deeply and irreversibly flawed. At times I was miserable with who I was, especially since I felt unable to change it. But I couldn’t tell anyone, either. No one, I thought, wanted to hear me whine that I was sad because no one liked me. So I put on a happy face and saved the sadness for the times when I got to be alone.

I know people personally who have struggled with other issues – body image and eating disorders, troubled relationships with parents, low self-esteem, spiritual doubt, and more – that they don’t like to talk about. They pretend to be happy, to have it all together, to be on top of everything, to be perfectly well-adjusted. But it’s a lie, a lie told not in malice but in fear.

Although I have learned to embrace my shyness (mostly, at least) as an essential part of who I am, I still fight the tendency to wear a mask sometimes. At work, where I’m a trainer, I don’t want to admit when I don’t know the answer. As a parent, I don’t want to admit when I don’t know what to do with my sons or when I make a mistake. As a husband, I don’t want to admit when I’m wrong or being selfish or rude. As a friend, sometimes I don’t want to give you a real answer when you ask how my kids are doing.

In many of these cases, my own pride is the culprit.

In others, it’s either our perfection-oriented culture or my flawed perception of that culture. I assume, unless you really dig or choose to read my blog, that you aren’t really interested in my problems, at least not enough to actually sit and listen to them. There are people, such as my awesome family and close friends, that are interested, but I assume the rest are not. Is that wrong? I’m not sure.

What I do know is this: when I do choose to let myself be real, it’s both scary and liberating. By letting myself be honest with others, I’m also being honest with myself. In doing so, I’m honoring the God who both made me the way I am and trusted me enough to let me bear whatever burden I’m carrying.

I’m probably more real on here than in any other place. As I’ve mentioned here before, I greatly prefer writing over talking. Talking makes me the center of attention, which makes me want to clam up and run away. Writing also makes me the center of attention, I suppose, but at least I don’t feel your eyes on me. I post some really honest, vulnerable stuff on here – my spiritual journey including struggles with depression and doubt, my list of some of the most shocking things I’ve ever done, potentially controversial views on religion and politics that I generally wouldn’t share in person, and many of the spots and warts that I normally hide.

That openness is one of the things I love most about blogging. I love being honest with you here in ways I cannot be through any other medium. You help keep me honest by following my blog. Thank you for helping me be real. I hope that by admitting my own imperfections, I can help you to be real as well.