I got to talking about blogs with this man/boy at the new library. He was endearing, but creepy too. Like Malachi from Children of the Corn. Anyway, Malachi was telling me all about his blog and how I should read it because it’s real. Not like the blog I write. Malachi assured me his blog was vastly superior because, while I was wiping snotty noses and teaching long division, he was living. Apparently what I’m doing is some subpar-fictitious version of living.

I smiled and shook my head when this man/boy blogger spoke, but all I could think was I know real blogs. Not my own, mind you. I have two friends who blog - Around the Way Girl and Turn Me Sweet. No way Malachi has a blog anywhere near as real as these two faboo chikas. (And he doesn’t. I checked it out. His blog is total crap.)

Now, this whole encounter was very off putting, but what really got me about the Children of the Corn blogger was that he assumed so much about me and what I write and who I am. (I did the same thing to him, by the way, but I was totally correct in my assumptions.) He kept calling me "one of those mommy bloggers." What this implies is that when I’m not catalog shopping, I’m writing extensively about my daughters’ hair bows and seer sucker bloomers. When I’m not monogramming something, I’m reading a book recommended by Oprah.

I’m a Mother Blogger. That just sounds tough and crude, doesn’t it? Especially when you spit it out like an expletive. "Well, I’ll be a mother blogger!" See what I mean? Mother Bloggers will never, ever be like Mommy Bloggers. We’re tattooed and we curse and we’re REAL. I think folks assume I am a Mommy Blogger because I homeschool my kids, scrapbook, and bake. But see, I do all of that while cussing and flashing my tattoos. Okay, maybe not so much with the cussing and tattoos, but I’m not some Sybil-ized version of Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart, and the Coupon Mom either. I’m a Mother Blogger.

Recently, my husband and I made some decisions that will greatly impact my whole mama/mommy/mother state of being. The two Littles are going back to regular school this fall. A great deal of talking, thinking, and soul searching went into this decision natch, but mostly I knew in my gut that it was the right thing to do. (Mother Bloggers like to go with their gut feelings.) I don’t want to explore everything that went into those decisions here or even how I feel about it all. What I do want to explore is time and being real. Not Malachi real. Around the Way Girl/ Turn Me Sweet real.

You can imagine how much time I’ll have on my hands when the Littles go back to brick and mortar schools in August. I’ll still be writing grants and blogs and columns. I’ll still be hosting coupon classes and cleaning house and baking and scrapbooking. I’ll still be about the busyness of my life, but what about all that time that’s now open? What will fill that time?

Healing and soul work- that just leads to being real. Not real like anybody else. Real like me. I’m not waiting until August to move on this idea of healing. I’ve been pretty proactive about addressing my crazies over the past two years. Now, I’m not talking about your everyday, run-of-the-mill crazies. No, these are more like Crazies with a capital C. They are as real as you can get. You know all those ugly parts of yourself you like to pretend don’t exist because who would love you if they saw all of that? Yeah, those pieces that rarely see the light of day, but are as much a part of who you are as the version of yourself you give to everyone else.

You’d think my crazies and I would be BFFs by now, but I’ve spent most of my life ignoring, indulging, hating, and/or medicating them. I think it’s about time I take full ownership of them and love them. Because they are a part of who I am. I’m inviting them in for coffee and getting to know them better, because if I can’t take ownership of all of me, how can I ever be real?

I think that’s what’s wrong with a lot of folks these days. We just aren’t very real because we want to hide what isn’t pretty. We think, "Who will love us when we are so flawed?" Those broken pieces get swept under the rug. Instead of taking the time to really look at the fractures (the Crazies with a capital C) under the light where we can work on healing them, we find a million and one ways to escape. We make excuses for our shortcomings. We shift our self hatred onto others. We don’t look in that soul mirror very often.

What amazes me is that I’m surrounded by people who see me and all my crazies and those people absolutely love me. My husband, my children, my soul sister friends - they see all the broken, crazy pieces that I’m finally embracing and they are encouraging, supporting and loving me as I heal. We do it for one another all the time. I love, support, and encourage them as well. Isn’t that simply beautiful? Isn’t that amazingly real?

The next time I run into Malachi, the vastly superior Children of the Corn blogger who really lives, I’ll invite him to sit down with me and all my crazies. I’ll take some time to explain the differences between Mommy Bloggers and Mother Bloggers. I might even cuss a little and flash my tattoo. I might just introduce him to Around the Way Girl and Turn Me Sweet. Maybe he’ll blog about something real for once - real people who have real crazies and real time to heal.