A Note on Social Media to My Fellow Humans
I don’t necessarily capture memories. I’m a wedding and portrait photographer. I know a lot of photographers say they capture “memories to last a lifetime” and I know what they mean but I think they say it wrong. I CREATE a VISUAL REPRESENTATION of the way my clients want to remember a specific time in their lives…. how thrilling it felt when they were engaged, how much they love their child and family, how they eagerly anticipated their child and loved their spouse when they were pregnant, the joy on their wedding day, etc. If I were to actually follow you around with my camera without you knowing it, I would probably capture the reality of the stress of wedding planning, the frustration of screaming children while you are just trying to get dinner together, pregnancy…need I say more….not necessarily fairytale like, wedding days can have stressful moments and there can be one too many drank by the end of the night. You get the idea.
Where am I going with this?
Lately I have been struggling with social media in my heart. My husband came home one day to both little kids screaming and literally clawing at me (I hadn’t even had a chance to shower all day) as the older two hid in the basement with their video games where they had pretty much trashed the place. He made a joke about how he looked at social media on the train on the way home and thought, “Wow, we have it really great!” and then came home and thought, “What is THIS?!” It made me stop and think. Is my social media a lie? Should I be posting more realistic things about my day-in and day-out? Then my big worry was, what if people are comparing themselves to me and think they are falling short because they don’t have the life I show on social media!!! Ahhhhhh!
Back in my day…..dear Lord I sound like a dinosaur…..we didn’t have social media. We read books and magazines and watched MTV back when it was actually music. We got together to talk. If we didn't, I had to talk to my friends on a corded phone in the kitchen while my parents could overhear everything I said. The point is, back then, we were comparing ourselves to people we knew were celebrities and not your typical friend. We knew it was not realistic to look like a celebrity or to have a celebrity’s life. Today, we are comparing ourselves to each other’s social media posts and can’t help but think we should be living the lives we see in each other’s posts. All of this made me realize that I am doing the same thing with photographers I look up to on social media. I think I have to have the lives they portray on social media to be successful. The thing is, I am NOTHING like those people in reality and they probably aren’t either. My family and personality are completely different. I would even bet my life goals are even different.
So, WHY do I compare myself to them? Because I am human. Just like you. We all do it. The thing is, social media is like a photograph. We want it to be a VISUAL REPRESENTATION of how we FEEL about our lives. The way I FEEL about my day today is that I am eternally grateful for my amazing family, the health of my family, the roof over our heads, the love of my husband, and the incredibly complicated way we are able to manage our crazy lives. The REALITY of my day is that we are trying to sleep train Rita so she is crying a lot, I got called out of my gym workout because she was crying. Then, Finn cried because he had to leave early. No one ate the food I made for lunch. The older boys still can’t think of anything within our budget that they want to do with mom who they have nothing in common with anymore. Finn woke up screaming from his nap after 30 minutes and wouldn’t go back to sleep which woke up Rita who was finally sleeping. I took everyone over to my sister’s house for her family session with their new puppy in their new house in which NONE of the kids cooperated. I yelled. I came home to realize Finn had a fever. Marc came home to neither of the littles ones willing to go to him even though he wanted to hold them and care for them and I had had enough at that point. Dinner didn’t happen and Finn is now waking up about every 10 minutes as I type this because he is sick and won’t take the medicine I keep trying to pour down his throat.
Do I really want all of that to be on social media? NO! You would all stop following me tomorrow if I posted all of that every day. I want my social media to be a highlight reel of my most wonderful or funny moments so that when the Facebook memories notification pops up, I’m excited to remember all the fun we had 5 years ago. It’s the same as when I see photos of myself. I only want to see the photos that help me remember my life in a positive way. Those are the ones that will go on our wall. I am not happy with my weight right now. I’m not beating myself up about it. I’m hitting the gym and giving myself some grace for having delivered 4 healthy children into this world but that doesn’t mean I want to post photos of my overweight self all over the internet. I’m probably only going to post the photos that will be a good representation of the way I want to remember this wonderful time....from the right angle and posed appropriately to hide the "extra." If I see myself in one of those photos, and I am looking heavier than normal (which, in reality, I am) I’m probably going to cringe and quickly close it. That’s the true reality of it.
So, am I going to start posting photos of the reality of my day-to-day? Nope! Do I want you to think my life is perfect? Nope! But, I want you to know that this is what I have in mind when I am taking YOUR photos. I know that you want to be flattered in your photos as much as possible. I know that you want to be able to look at your photos from this time in your life 15 years from now with a happy heart and not knit pick the way you look.
So, no, I don’t think social media is evil any more than I think we should all take belly shirt photos after having given birth. I do think though that we all need regular reminders that social media AND photos are a highlight reel not to be compared to our daily lives. I don’t curl my hair every day. I don’t put makeup on every day. I stay in my workout clothes more days than not. My kids cry and whine ALL THE TIME. 5 days out of the week I feel like crying and giving up. 2 days out of the week I cry out of frustration about something, usually kid related. My house is absolutely not photogenic. My husband HATES having his photo taken when it is not 100% candid (good photos are almost NEVER 100% candid even if they look that way). I am currently 40 lbs. overweight. And, I LOVE my life! Every moment in our life is needed and purposeful, even the hard parts…. especially the hard parts! I am divorced and remarried. My story is long and complicated but I am here because of it and so are you. Today, hold your head up high because you are here today because of what you have been through. Don’t be ashamed of it. Don’t compare yourself to others. We all walk our paths in our own time. Sometimes you have to turn around and go back before you can go forward.
Today, I want you to know that you don’t have to have a perfect life to have a perfect photo to remember how you felt about this time in your life. If you’re waiting until you lose those 10 lbs. or until something else is just right, it’ll never happen. Just do it. You can remember this imperfect part of your life in a very perfect way. This is my challenge to you. If you can’t spring for a full portrait session right now, just take a cell phone picture or something! Document it in a way that will make you smile in those difficult moments. When I am having a difficult day, I often look at photos that remind me why I can make it through…there is a reason to smile. And, there are brighter skies ahead. The sun always rises again.
So, today don’t just have a great day….make it great. Smile for something real and appreciate something about yourself because you are worth appreciating.
XO -Megan
