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Theresa Blackburn

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So many people ask me how I come up with ideas for my column. Some weeks are hard ... like pulling teeth; other weeks just come together, almost like the column writes itself. Then some weeks, I plan and research and write and re-write.

Others ask me how I became so funny. But I don't think I'm funny, more that I get myself into funny circumstances, and then write about them.

But there are so many things I'd LIKE to write about but can't. For instance, there's this story of a romantic night with my husband that ended up damaging drywall in a room in our house ... that's all I am permitted to say ... I wrote the story - I really, really WANTED to send it in, but couldn't.

My husband has friends who read the paper ... enough said.

Then there are stories about my kids and the funny things they have done or said. Once these things have happened - usually at the exact moment of execution, a sentence usually follows ...

"You CANNOT write about this Mom - you hear me - you ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WRITE ABOUT THIS!"

Because for me, I'm an open book ... willing to open myself up to the world, no holds barred, and no blemish worth covering. My family, though, is much more introverted.

But now, in public, other people have started to reference my column when it comes to my own actions.

Like when I'm at Curves and I talk to people and ask questions, a few have hesitated before answering, buffering their response with the usual, "You're not going to print this are you?"

It's something I heard for years as a reporter ... and now as a columnist I am still hearing it, but for different reasons.

People feel the need to hide, for the most part.

Yes, there are always things we should not be shouting from the bleachers, like how you think your sister's husband is an idiot, but for the most part, our lives are not so cloak and dagger that we are unable to share parts of it.

Come on people, no one will die if you expose who you really are or how you really feel. What happens to us as individuals and families are shared by so many others ... we do not live in isolation when it comes to our hopes, our fears and our problems.

We are human ... and as such, share many common bonds.

So why do we feel the need to hide ourselves from one another?

Ego, mostly. We're all tied up in how we should be, how we should look, how we should be living ... instead of how we are right now.

So, how are we, really? Right now I'm hungry - in fact at this very moment I could eat a horse ... well, maybe not a horse, but a small mammal for sure! Right now I'm pretty broke because my husband is going to school.

Right now I'm still fat ... but working on it.

Right now I'm worried about the economy in the United States and how it's going to impact our country, our finances, my husband's chances for a job once he's out of school.

Right now I have a son who struggles in school and gets extra help.

Right now I have a daughter who's trying to finish her GED and is motivated yet struggles.

Right now I have a young daughter who doesn't like leaving her important playtime to use the bathroom.

Right now, life is not perfect and that's OK.

Five years ago, around this time of year, my husband and I were sitting in a hospital board room with other parents on the first night of a 'Parenting Your Teenager' course in Goose Bay, Labrador.

We quickly discovered that other parents were going through some of the same things we were.

Despite the fact that many of the things we were suffering through were not nice, that many incidents were never spoken of outside of the home, and that many of these things that happened made us feel like outright failures as parents, here we sat, openly expressing ourselves, making each other feel better by the mere fact we shared a common thread ... our experiences.

And boy, did that feel good.

***

Theresa Blackburn is a wife, mother and New Brunswick Community College instructor who lives and diets in Woodstock. You can e-mail her at theresa@mybigfatlife.ca, or join her group, Big Fat Life, on Facebook.