If you haven't watched Bruce Jenner's 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer, I will fill you in (Spoiler Alert): Bruce Jenner is a male who was born with a "female's soul" and identifies as transgender. I didn't know what to expect when I watched the two hour interview last night. Would Kimye show up and try to steal the spotlight? Would Bruce do the interview in a wig and high heels? Was this just going to be another shallow publicity stunt?
To my surprise, I tuned in to an interview with a sincere, hurting, confused individual who was tired of living a lie. After watching, I was still left with a list of questions about his decision. How much money is he making from that interview? How do the Kardashians really feel about all of this? After scrolling through my social media pages, I learned that people had very mixed reactions to Bruce's interview. Some of you support him. Some of you are still confused. Some of you think he is a lunatic. Some of you could care less.
No matter how you feel about Bruce, or his decision, we can all learn a thing or two from him. I commend Bruce for being so open about such a controversial issue. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am tired of celebrities who live in the land of the make believe. Perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect cars, perfect homes and perfect lives. But the truth is... get ready for it... no one is perfect. Not Beyonce. Not President Obama. Not Ariana Grande. Not Kim Kardashian. Not Bruce Jenner.
Sometimes I wonder, doesn't it get tiring pretending to be perfect all the time? I mean, if we know celebrities are not perfect, and celebrities know they are not perfect, what is the point? We live in the era of Photoshop and the land of filters. We read articles and watch YouTube videos to help us look like celebrities who have been retouched and edited to the point where they don't even look like themselves. Do they really expect us to believe that they wake up flawless every day? No bad breath? No messy hair? No, "UGH, I fell asleep with my makeup on again and my face looks like death," skin?
Depression. Insecurity. Anger. Resentment. Mental Health. Jealousy. Family Dysfunction. Suicide. Imperfection. These are every day issues in our community that no one ever wants to talk about... until it's too late. We live in a reactive, rather than proactive, world where real conversation only takes place after something tragic or shocking has happened. What if we had openly talked about mental health issues before Robin Williams took his life?
I hope that Bruce is happy now that he has shared his story with the world, but more importantly, I hope that people were inspired by his courage to be vulnerable. It's a skill that I've yet to master in my mid-twenties amongst peers with perfect Facebook relationships and flawless Insta-vacations.
The truth is, we all have issues. Showing vulnerability doesn't make you weak, it makes you human. Your strength is not determined by your ability to live without conflict, but by your ability to overcome. It may not be realistic for the world to pull a Mean Girls style auditorium intervention where we share our feelings, admit our faults and take turns doing trust falls, but I think healthy conversation is a great place to start.