A lot of people have commented on my courage this week as I’ve posted some very honest posts and pushed the limits on a few controversial topics this week.

But, all of this has gotten me thinking. Am I really all that courageous? Yes, I am speaking the unfiltered truth – the good, the bad and the ugly. Yes, I am sharing my emotions with the entire world. Yes, these things may be admirable, but are they really courageous?

I quick google of the term courage results in a lot of common themes all about overcoming or confronting fears, pain, danger, uncertainty, etc. So, I can see how people are using the word courage given my posts of this week, and I am actually rather complimented by the description, but I’m not convinced that I fall into that definition for a number of reasons:

1. I am not stating my feelings and our experience to be courageous. I am actually stating them for two very different reasons which have nothing to do with courage. First, I love to write, and for the first time in my life I’m doing something I love without financial reward, and it just so happens that these topics are currently very close to my heart and always bouncing around in my brain. Second, I want to help people and I know that by sharing our story and our experiences, I may help someone else going through a hard time or even just having a bad day. Whether it be on the tough topics like miscarriage and adoption, or on the easier subjects like dogs, travel and my usually ridiculous attempts at cooking. If by telling my story, I can help someone, then it’s totally worth it.
2. I am not overcoming or confronting anything. I am discussing things, but I don’t feel that I am overcoming anything.
3. It is very easy to write this when I haven’t revealed my identity! No-one out in the WordPress world or the internet world knows my real name or where I live. Yes, based on some blog posts, if someone wanted to figure it out they could likely piece things together, but even then, it’s unlikely anyone I personally know is going to find my blog and then figure who I am. One day I might tell people, but not today. So, can I really be considered courageous, when I’m willing to open up to the world anonymously? When, I’m only prepared to share our harsh truths with people I don’t know, as we haven’t even told many of our family members about our journey, is it really courageous? And, even our friends and family who know what we are going through have no idea about the depth of the emotions to the extent that I’m discussing here. By being anonymous, I have made this incredibly easy to discuss. To me, acting courageously would be to share this blog with the people in our lives who are or should be supporting us.

So, if do not see myself as courageous, then what word would I use to describe me?

Honest. I have always been brutally honest, to the point where it has gotten me in trouble in the past, and I’m sure it will again in the future. But, when I started blogging, I promised myself that I would be completely honest about everything – the good, the bad and the ugly. For the time being, I have sacrificed my true identity to help ensure that I can be honest – to help prevent me from filtering myself for fear of hurting someone else. This honesty has been very important to me, so much so that at times my husband has been shocked at what I’ve written and put out to the world. He gets why I’m doing it, and he is supportive, but that doesn’t mean he always agrees with me sharing each and every detail about our personal lives.

I know eventually I’ll be very courageous when we tell the rest of our friends and family about our situation. Heck, if we ever do adopt we’ll have to say something one day as it will be slightly odd for us to bring home a child without ever being pregnant. Those who still don’t know about our situation – some family members, friends and neighbours, might really wonder without some sort of explanation.

So for now, I choose honesty over courage. I will continue to hide behind my computer screen until I am ready to come out and be both honest and courageous.