If you walked into my house two weeks ago, you would have been met with a shining, spotless floor. One that was freshly scrubbed, polished, and pristine. You maybe would have even thought, “Wow, Bec has really gotten her shit together and she even mops her floors now!”

You would have been comfortable eating a piece of food you accidentally dropped. In fact, you would have felt it insulting to me if you dropped anything at all on these floors without immediately scooping it up and shoveling it directly into your mouth while imagining me flitting around my tiny spotless house wielding a mop. This is the frame of reference you have. This is the scene you imagine. These are the images a tidy house conjures.

Things outside the frame are usually very, very good indicators of absolutely nothing going on within the frame.

What actually happened that one day my floor was spotless, was this:

I was working from home and had a morning full of meetings.

In between meetings, my ADHD ass was trying to clean my house because my kids (AKA: MINI CYCLONES OF DESTRUCTION) had left the day before, leaving a loving trail of reminders of their presence.

I had successfully started a load of laundry and a load of dishes in the dishwasher, but… some of my dishes weren’t dishwasher safe. Also, my kids had dumped an obscene number of non-sink-safe substances directly into my sink. So, I had turned on the hot water, plugged the sink, and squeezed some Dawn into it to start the disinfecting of Gross Sink and Dumb Dishes.

Then, my manager called me out of the blue to discuss something. So I went into my room/home office and began a conversation whilst forgetting I had turned on the sink.

I then proceeded to work and go right into an interview.

My boyfriend (who also has ADHD and thought I was just like, declogging my sink with Drain-O) came in mid-interview and said, “Hey”

I shushed him because INTERVIEW.

He left. Came back a few minutes later, mouthing: Your sink was overflowing.

At this point, the entire FRAME came into view: Oh yeah… I started a hot soapy sink! Oh yeah, I then started to go other shit! Oh, yeah. I am a freaking MESS OF A PERSON WHY DO PEOPLE PUT UP WITH ME?!?

I wish I had a picture of the kitchen when I first jumped up and went to take a look, but I don’t. Bubbles. Bubbles everywhere. Hot water, soapy floors, counters…

But no one cares about that. They only care about the end result. They only care about the Frame. The Scene. The Things They Can See. And that is why so many of us keep the real parts of our lives out of focus, off to the side.

The obvious problem, is that the frame is fake. It isn’t real. It isn’t our life. It contains the leftovers and by-products of all the real life stuff happening just off-camera. If you look happy in-frame it’s because of or in spite of whatever is going on behind the scenes.

And, well… I’m tired of living off-screen.