A while ago I made some cupcakes with the kid. In the very brief window between “the cupcakes are decorated” and “wait, Daddy, why are there only eleven cupcakes now and why is your mouth full?” I took a picture to proudly share my kid’s sprinkle-deploying skills on social media.
Just before posting it, I realized that the picture also included the very messy corner of the kitchen counter—currently occupied by a stack of papers to be dealt with, some kindergarten art, three boxes of masks, a camera, a tie, and a basket of loose change and other junk. I cropped all that out of there, posted the picture and then overthought it for a week.
We all curate our lives for social media, but that’s nothing new; I also tidy the house before guests come over, and I throw out any fast-food bags that might happen to be on the floor of my car before I give somebody a ride. I’m sure that 100,000 years ago there were people sweeping out their caves and touching up their petroglyphs before the neighbours dropped by for tea.
The cupcake photo, though, started me thinking about how I curate my the messy parts of my actual life and emotions before inviting others in. Sometimes it’s hard to reach out to friends for support because I don’t want to bring them down with my problems—I’d rather lift them up with a nice picture than worry them with my clutter. Luckily, I have great friends who remind me that they’d actually prefer me not to crop those life photos, and I’m getting better at believing them on that.
My kid does it, too. The other morning he came downstairs a few minutes before me, during which time he poured himself a glass of lemonade, spilled it, poured another, and cleaned up nearly all of the spill. When I came down I was presented with a Rockwellesque tableau: one motionless child staring at me with a too-wide, frozen grin and a globe of paper towels wider than him hidden behind his back, the only sound a gentle drip-drip-drip of the lemonade in its leisurely departure from the counter. Missed it by that much.
So what’s outside the frame between me and my son? I try to be honest with him about my feelings to help him learn about how to deal with his, but there are times when I think a bit of cropping is useful. Mostly I crop away my worrying, since he’s a worrier too. What was that crash downstairs? Oh, I’m sure it was just the cats, go to sleep. Am I going to get COVID when I go back to school? You’re as safe as we can make you, you just need to focus on learning and it’ll be okay. I worry sometimes that he’s hiding feelings of grief or worry from me, maybe so that I don’t get anxious about how he’s feeling, or when he just doesn’t want to talk about it right now. And that’s okay, because they’re his feelings and it’s up to him to learn where that healthy balance is. I’ll just make sure that he knows it’s fine to have a messy counter behind your tray of freshly-decorated cupcakes. Wait, why are there only ten…
Next week: Finding “middle guy”.