Real people

So I love the result of a couple of glasses of (white trash) box cabernet and the thought process attached to mutilating my caveman cuticles. I've been spending a ton of time lately thinking about the people that I've allowed into my life. There's a definite pattern. I'm a fan of real. I'm a huge non-fan of fake. I've been fake. I was fake for most of my young life, always trying to people-please, fit the mold. Why do we do this? And why in the world would someone do this as an adult...as a parent? I found my reality somewhere around 2001. I stopped trying to be what everyone wanted, what everyone expected. This was probably the end of a marriage...but the beginning of my TRUE life. I found Christ, I found a faith, reality...and people that were REAL. They walked the walk. They accepted my shortcomings, they confessed their own. TRANSPARENCY. This is a must for the people I seek to be part of my life. I have this in spades in so many friends. The friends that cry with me over the 'variances' in our children. The friends that I can honestly spill my guts to over my failings as a mother. The few that with I share my fears and honest opinions. A huge annoyance for me? That person that changes their personality, their tone of voice, the octave of their voice, pretty much everything about themselves when someone new appears on the scene. I don't need chameleons. I have enough in my yard. Joy for me - meeting someone that seems prim and proper, then discovering that they have more of a gift of sarcasm than I. My beautiful princess friend that struggles every day to keep her crown on straight. The friends that can share their therapists' names with me and the medications that have helped them through if needed. Reality is not always joy. But my real friends? They are a joy...always.