It’s hard to believe that it has already been three years that Allan and I have been together. Time really does fly when you’re having fun! On Wednesday I spoke a lot about authenticity… and I am so happy that one of the things in my life that is very much authentic and the same online and offline, behind closed doors or in public, is my relationship with Allan.

This long weekend, we’re off to Tofino for some sun, relaxation, time with friends, and of course, much needed surf to celebrate our three year anniversary. It feels like it’s been way too long since we’ve been in the water and I’m looking forward to kick-starting a summer of surfing! We’ll be staying at Ocean Village in Tofino.

When Allan and I first met at work at the very first video game company I worked at, we were friends for nearly a year before we started dating. I pretty much had to bribe him to go out with me… but it worked, and we’ve been together ever since.

I honestly thought we would get bored of each other with the amount of time we spend together. The very three months of dating we were together almost 24/7 and well… three years later, not much has changed. It blows my mind that we’re still not sick of each other.

We have the same interests… we love surfing, snowboarding, cooking, scuba diving, relaxing, golfing, and now, even mountain biking together.

We hang out with each other’s groups of friends together.

We introduce each other to new things.

We travel together.

We have fun together.

We’re not perfect by any means… every relationship has ups and downs, and ours is no different. But we do manage to resolve our disagreements quickly, and try never to go to bed upset. We’ve worked extremely hard on our relationship… we’ve set aside time to work on problems, we’re gone through tough times together, we’ve done exercises, read through relationship books and workbooks, and even made sure to do a few counselling sessions a couple years ago. It’s made a world of difference, and I can honestly say our relationship is very strong, healthy, and happy.

Nothing comes easy, that’s for sure!

What’s I’ve realized most of all (thanks to my friends Kim and Liv), is that it’s a relationship worth fighting for. And when I think about it that way, I know that we have to put time and effort into it to make it work. But it’s worth it. And most good things in life you have to work and fight for.

We’re so compatible in terms of interests, personalities, values, lifestyle, humour, romance, and careers… that I honestly can’t imagine my life with anyone else. I know he’s the one. I can’t even count how many nights we’ve gone to bed laughing so hard that our pillows got wet with tears.

Allan is incredibly creative, smart, kind, generous, hard-working, athletic, and so so funny. I feel so very lucky to be with him. It’s weird to get off work and miss each other so much during the day that when he comes to pick me up, it’s like a big reunion. Every frickin’ day!

So here’s to you Allan…. Happy Three Year Anniversary! I can’t wait to surf with you this anniversary weekend, and have many more surf weekends throughout our lives. I love you.

On the heels of my post about sincerity… I think it is necessary to follow up with a post about authenticity. I feel like authenticity is an extremely underrated quality. What is authenticity to me? It’s about being true to yourself, it’s about having your online persona match up with your offline persona, it’s about being consistent around your friends and about being honest with who you are.

I feel I’ve done a pretty good job in my adult years of staying true to myself. But what I’m realizing I’m not doing a very good job of is being consistent around my friends. Over the past few months I’ve had a few heart-to-heart talks with some of my very close friends about my desire to be more authentic. They’ve all commented on how I seem so “put together” on my blog, but when we talk in person I’m much more open about my feelings, my concerns, and my weaknesses. They’ve also noted about how I act very different one-on-one than I do in large groups.

Let’s tackle the first problem about the online persona. A personal blog is inherently narcissistic. It’s not possible to have a personal blog without it being about you to some degree. I feel like with anyone’s online persona… it is inherently difficult to completely show all sides of you online. To some degree, it’s to protect yourself. The online space is very vulnerable and you never know who could be looking at your website or blog – your coworkers, your future boss, your parents, your relatives… so already it’s not in your best interest to share every part of who you are. I feel like I’ve done a so-so job with this. I’ve posted about my struggles with eczema, weight, money, relationships, and more. But it’s true – my blog is more about my adventures on the west coast and the fun things I am doing.

So how do you reconcile this? Is it even possible?

I can say this honestly though – everything I’ve said on my blog about myself or my life is completely true. At least I can take some pride in that.

The second problem is consistency with my friends. I want to be authentic with them regardless of whether I’m in a group setting or just hanging out with them one-on-one. I think the base-level problem here is that I care a lot about what people think of me. The past few years it’s something I’ve been very aware of, and something that I’ve been struggling not to worry about. When you care about what other people think of you, it causes you to value things that probably shouldn’t be a priority in life. For example, let’s face it, would you buy designer items like bags or shoes if you didn’t care about what people thought of you? In some cases yes, high quality items are a good thing… but you can usually buy high quality items without them coming from a large French or Italian fashion house at 500% markup. It’s a constant struggle I’ve been trying to fight, but I’ve often lost. And the truth is, I’m not quite sure how to fight it.

I know what is most important in my life: Allan, my family, my friends, my career, and my activities. In that order. Everything else should fall underneath that. It’s important that I do things because I want to, not because I want to impress others. Will I still buy designer items, cook fancy meals, go on adventures, do activities and throw parties? Yes. But I need to make sure I am doing those things because I want to, not because of what others will think of me. It’s a very fine line, but I need to try. And I hope in doing so, I can be more authentic to my friends and my readers. I’ve already taken some extreme steps in my life in the past few years to be more authentic, but I need to be better.

I know that I’ve been sincere: doing things when I say I’m going to, really meaning something when I say it, inviting people out to do things only when I really want to do those things with them, and being friends with people that I really care about and want to be friends with. I’m also weeding people out of my life that are bad friends or have bad influences on my life. Being surrounded by good people who encourage you, have positive influences on your life and help take the stress out of your life is important. But being more authentic is the next step for me personally.

So here we go! In my first big steps towards being authentic, I’m going to lay out my strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has a good and a bad side, and no one is perfect! I think it’s crazy when people message me and tell me they think I lead the “perfect life”… let me tell you, no one has a perfect life!

My strengths: Loving in my relationship, loyal to my close friends, self-aware, creativity, ambitious with my career, good at organizing things, getting things done, haggling, perseverance, multitasking, social, somewhat athletic/sporty, generous, willing to take a chance, trustworthy, faithful, honest, and fun.

My weaknesses: Absolutely terrible with my money, extremely impatient, lazy at home (like to watch TV when I’m home), worry too much about what others think of me, no self-control with food, thinking too much inside my head, getting stressed out, buying things I can’t afford, speaking my mind before thinking, messy, short with my temper around strangers, shy around strangers, picky about many things, and different around groups than individuals.

I’m going to continue to work on my weaknesses, and especially work on being even more authentic in my life.

So there you go!

And here are my questions to you…

Is it even possible to reconcile an online persona with an offline persona?

Do you feel like authenticity is important? If so, how have you incorporated it into your life?