The pictures you see. The moments you don't see.
A photo of my son on a bike. A snapshot of him playing with his cousins. In a lake. In a boat. At the zoo. Eating frozen custard with Grannie. Tossing a ball to Grandpa. My husband playing basketball with our son. My mother-in-law watching a parade. The older nieces hanging out a music festival. Mini golf. Sand castles.
You get to see these photos. They will be proudly displayed on my Facebook page with a caption about the week spent visiting family and friends. There are no lies in these images. They all happened. The smiles are real. But they aren't the complete story.
My husband and I recently had a conversation about the rose-colored world that is Facebook. I know we've all felt it. I certainly have. I scroll through the photos and posts and see happy families. Kids who never cry. Husbands and wives who never fight. Parents and adult children who never struggle through the changes of an aging relationship and differing roles.
On Facebook, people have awesome lives.
We can sit here and complain about how it can taint our perception about how life should be and make us feel inadequate or we can just accept it and enjoy it. When you walk into my home I have pictures framed on my walls. They're of happy times. They make me smile. They make me feel comfortable. That's why I hang them. But wanna know a secret? Before that first professional photo shoot I spent hours in a postpartum state trying to find the perfect sweaters for my husband and I to wear. There were tears. (We went with basic black. This should not have been an emotional, stressful endeaver). My son's one-year photo shoot lasted about 15 minutes. He broke down rather quickly.
And this Facebook post is no different. It occurred to me as I paged through the smiling faces that our vacation seems perfect. I could post them and let you all believe that. But let's be real. There were fights before and during. At one point we had five adults and four kids staying in a three bedroom home. There was bickering. My pregnant self cried. The pictures don't show that. Does that mean that Facebook is false and unfair? And harmful to people?
I don't think so. I think instead we should simply see Facebook as a written record. Like pictures hanging on a wall or a photo album, they do not tell the whole story. They are snapshots taken to freeze a moment in time. But as we know, life is much more fluid and sticky than that. Still it's fun to share the good and remember these picturesque moments.
