Real or Fake? Picture Perfect Posts

I have always loved taking pictures. When I was a child, I was always flipping through photo albums of birthday parties, vacations, and school pictures. To me, photographs help bring me back to a moment. They're like little time machines.

I remember taking pictures with my little turquoise camera that used those strange looking 110 film cartridges. The old disposable 35mm cameras were also a must have for vacations. It was always so fun to take them to the store to get developed. Of course, they were horrible pictures, but in each one of those fuzzy, foggy, off-centered pictures, there is a snapshot of my life.

In my early 20s, I started making scrapbooks. Well, I like to call them "Fancy Photo Albums" - basically photo albums with pretty paper and stickers, not the elaborate ones I see on Pinterest. I still enjoy putting pictures in albums, but I really don't have time. I'm about 3 years behind.  The other downside is that you don't get to share them with friends and family easily.

Social media has allowed me to create digital photo albums that I can share. I use Facebook to share more personal photos of my family and our adventures. On Instagram, I post more general, small moment pictures. This blog has allowed me to add some journalling, which I was always really bad at, when making actual scrapbooks.  Instagram and "Adventures of a Scatterbrain" are public, so I try to keep the pictures focused more on places and activities, not faces, to keep life a little more private.

I just returned from a short vacation with my son. It wasn't the ideal vacation. It was just the two of us, travelling to Prince Edward Island for an extended weekend trip. Little C was not in the best mood. I think he was going through a bit of a growth spurt, so he was having a bad week. For the most part, he was his usual happy, giggly, huggy self, but some times he was a screechy, tempery, grumpus. I always have a hard time with that, so I'm sure it seemed a lot worse than it was. Of course, when I got back home, I posted 25 or so pictures from the trip on Facebook and a few to Instagram.

I think he found his herd. #BestDayEver #PEIVacation #IslandHillFarm #Goats #ToddlerLife

A video posted by Tiffany S (@tiffs2012) on Jul 31, 2016 at 11:10am PDT

I was looking through the album the next day and realized that no one would know that it wasn't all picture perfect. This got me thinking, My Facebook and Instagram feed is always filled with happy pictures. I only post happy, positive pictures.  Is this an accurate snapshot of my life? Am I being fake?

Sure, you could say that it's fake, but I don't look at it like that. Honestly, unless it led to a good laugh or smile, I don't want to remember it in detail. I wouldn't devote a page in my photo album to it, so why would I post the picture online, where it could potentially life forever? I try to live in the positive and focus on the good.

I think it's easy to become envious of others when you see their perfect pictures posted online. Just remember that we are all creating our own digital footprint, editing and polishing before hitting that share or publish button. Things may not be quite as good as they seem, at least not all the time.

You won't see me posting pictures of tantrums, screaming, tears, or moments of failure. It's not because I don't want people to know that they happen, I just don't want to focus on them. Every parent knows that there are plenty of not-so-picture-perfect times, so why focus on the negative? Call me fake if you want, but I just want to remember the good times.