Social media life is not real life.

Instagram is a strange land where people are constantly being photographed from behind looking at vistas, wearing bikinis in The Maldives and wearing floppy hats at music festivals.

And Facebook? Well, it seems to have turned into a family photo album. I am just as guilty of this as anyone but goddamn, it must hurt for people who want children but don’t have them, are missing their families, or who want a partner but haven’t found one. The whole platform seems to shout, ‘LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL LIFE’, in between poorly researched click bait/chick crack. These articles all have titles like, ‘Extroverts who feel too much’ and ‘Introverts who love too much’. They are invariably bullshit and written by someone named Ariella the Life Coach.

I know this because I spend eleventy million hours breastfeeding and scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.

These are lands of sunlight; Easter egg hunts and holidays with #nofilter sunsets.

What social media doesn’t show is the crappy bits.

For example, Baby Joey is going through a stage where he is very grizzly and cries unless you are feeding him, holding him, PAYING COMPLETE ATTENTION TO HIM. It’s as fun as it sounds.

I decided to take the bin out yesterday morning. I was wearing pyjamas, leaking breast milk and rushing to get back to bubs.

And then I stacked it down the stairs. As luck would have it, I had cleaned the fridge out so the bin bag, which tore, was full of: soup, peaches, rice and coffee grinds, all of which wound up all over me. I also twisted my ankle so it took me a minute to regroup, un-crumple and hobble down the stairs.

I did not take a selfie.

I did not post it on Facebook.

I couldn’t have felt less sexy sitting on the back steps covered in bin juice. As a new mum, my body has turned to squishy dough, I have a weird Caesarean belly, I have grey regrowth and my wardrobe choices are guided by whether I can whip out a boob without too much hassle.

So next time when you’re thinking, ‘Bloody hell. Why is everyone’s life so much better than mine?’, think about me, covered in soup, to the soundtrack of a five week old losing his shit.