Some go to glossy magazines or the society section of the Sunday papers when they want to see glamorous, glowing people clinking champagne glasses. I just go to Facebook. My feed is full of friends who are either airbrushing themselves, using cosmetics with professional-level skill or, most likely, are ageing more gracefully than my face, with its murder of crows' feet.
My friends' Facebook and Instagram photos showcase a perfect holiday, or an idyllic picnic, or a pristine backyard.
![Happy kids AND clean sheets - what scorcery is this?](/web/20161007155131im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/w/r/u/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grwrn4.png/1475817217502.jpg)
Everyone's smiling or laughing, and here's the thing – their kids seem utterly delightful. Everyone seems fit and well and happy and, in short, to have it all.
I'm happy for them, of course. But what I'd like to know, if I'm totally honest, is... how do they do it?
I know some people besides Roxy Jacenko curate their social media feed, and I do it myself to try to give the impression that my life is full of non-stop delight. But even if I apply the 'realism' filter that you'll never find in the Instagram app, I don't know how they manage it.
How have so many people I know managed to reach proper, full-flavoured adulthood, with that apparent ability to have everything together? How have my friends so effortlessly become our parents?
My life is fine, even great in many respects, but I can't pretend for a moment that I'm firing on all cylinders. I live the same way I cook – I'm fine with having one burner operating, maybe even two. Add a third, and maybe put something in the oven or the microwave, and I'm flummoxed.
Honestly, a few weeks ago I cooked dinner, I completely forgot about the tinned sweetcorn I had microwaved for a side dish. My wife only figured it out because of the empty tin on the kitchen bench, and by then the meal was over and the corn was cold. We had to eat it the following night.
Most days, it's all I can do to walk the dog – and rarely for long enough to meet with his satisfaction, if I'm honest – shower, and turn in something resembling work. Sometimes I'll do some exercise, but never quite enough; other times I'll tidy, but not nearly as often I should; sometimes I'll cook, but never anything hugely complicated. And I'm not yet responsible for any children except on the rare occasions I'm asked to babysit someone else's. How on earth will I manage to cope with that?
Well, in my experience little kids come with loud alarm systems to tell you they need attention. So I'm sure they, at least, would be taken care of, even if I'll probably end up re-wearing dirty clothes.
So many of my friends seem to have parenting all worked out. They're both back at work, some or all of the time; their kids seem eminently well-adjusted and even downright happy; their homes are not only pristine temples of refined taste but perfectly tidy, and they somehow seem to fit in not only trips to the gym but to find time to catch up with the latest TV series everyone's talking about.
And I bet they don't have a few bills they won't remember to sit down and pay until they get a call about it, or a pile of cardboard boxes full of random stuff they shoved in at the last minute, the last time they moved.
It might not seem that way from what I've written, but I'm not jealous of those who live this way. My life's just fine. It's more that when I come into contact with these people who seem to have their acts together, I feel the same way I do when I visit a foreign country. I marvel at their vastly different, largely unfamiliar cultural practices, try to imagine what it would be like to live that way, and simply can't.
Some of my friends even manage renovations, a process which seems so incredibly stressful and inconvenient that I can't even imagine it. What must it be like to have things 100 per cent sorted, and then choosing to trade off things not being sorted for months so they can be even more sorted down the track?
It may be that everyone is as hopeless as I am, and just better at conveying the opposite impression. It may be that when I share this article on my own Facebook page, my friends will say "no no, those photos are of the rare time we got it together, and we carefully masked out the massive pile of washing up and the vast stack of unopened mail", and "the day we invited you over was the only day this year our place wasn't a tip".
But I'd like to think that as we mature, this stuff gradually falls into place for us. I haven't quite managed it by nearly-40, but perhaps I'll get there by 50?
In the meantime, I'm going to choose my photos with great care, and make sure any entertaining happens only within 24 hours of a major tidying operation. Because if I can't join the ranks of those who have it together, then I'm definitely going to join the ranks of those who pretend.
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