What's Really Real ?

I'm still surprised at my gullible nature. My sister has describes it as my having as many pairs of "rose colored glasses" as Fred Sanford had reading glasses in his drawer of glasses. I just tend to take things and people at face value. I've always done that - much to my detriment. And I'm still stunned and amazed when I find out I've been duped.

During a conversation with my sister the other day she said, "Shit ain't sound right tah me." She said this in response to something she heard one of her teenage daughter's friend say. Now, when she first repeated what was said , it sounded perfectly reasonable to me. However, upon hearing the same thing she immediately knew something was amiss....turns out she was right.

Why does her brain say, "this does not add up", and my brain says, "sounds okay to me" ?

I wonder how many times as a teenager my daughter told me "stories" that I fell for hook line and sinker. How many times did boyfriends or husbands tell me bold face lies, and I was never the wiser. Did they think to themselves, "Damn, she'll believe anything!" ?

I went to a bookstore tonight to read (not buy) the new K.itt.y Ke.lly biography on Oprah. I skimmed through it looking for the juicy secrets K.itt.y promised on the morning talk shows. And as I read a few goodies I started to think about how whenever my Significant Other, (hereafter referred to as Lomy Li) said many of the things I read about O, I balked. Not that Miss KK should be believed over Lomy Li, just sayin'.

There's a blog that I've followed religiously for nearly four years. In all of that time I've been secretly jealous of the blogger because her life seemed to be perfect. She has a career, a handsome husband, the cutes kids and a great home. She seemed to have it all and all the answers to boot. She never wrote about dumb mistakes, insecurities or fears. I wanted to be just like her when I grow up. Then, she effed me up. In one of her posts she mentioned a riff between her and her husband which caused them not to speak to each other for over a week. What?! You mean to tell me it's not all giggles over there in Perfect Land? A week? Wow. I had to reassess my assessment of this woman's life and recognize she is human just like me. Her life is not perfect. She just doesn't write about all of the imperfections. I'm not saying she's trying to sell a fairy tale, she just doesn't tell her business like that.

But why would I think it was perfect anyway? Why didn't I think to myself, "Shit ain't sound right tah me."?