Of course that would happen. The night I write about my thoughts about postpartum depression as a mental illness (or not) I mistakenly tweet the post from my “professional” account instead of my mom/PPD account. That figures. Really, it does. That’s just the way my life tends to work.
I knew that would happen eventually. I guess that’s the problem with tweeting when I’m tired – I don’t pay attention to which picture of me is associated with which account. And out it goes.
I didn’t realize I’d done that until this morning when I got an @-reply from someone I work with who commented on it. Got that full-on, heart-stopping panic again. Tried to push it down, but the Oh.My.God took over. But, to give myself some credit, I had a good freak out and then I realized there wasn’t much I could do about it if people had seen it. (Okay, before coming to that logical realization I deleted the tweet. I’m not that courageous yet.)
A good friend and colleague – who was already in the know and who was the lucky audience for my freak-out – always says the right sort of calming things, and he came through again. In addition to walking me through the “So what? Some people might know now” process, he did what he always does. He cracked jokes.
“Social media sucks.”
Cue laughter. Yes, it does sometimes.
“Don’t you hate it when the real you breaks through the person you pretend to be?”
Ha ha. Also funny. And also true.
But then he asked the provocative question.
“What if the good thing about this is that you don’t have to pretend anymore? What if that mask can come off now?”
What if.
