not taking pictures of myself is my fave

I hate pictures of myself. Now that we are in the age of digital technology there is this horrible option to take a picture and then immediately after look at it (who invented this? I need names). While most people run up to the picture taker after seeing the flash and click to make sure they look OK or to just see how cute they all are, I never do. I NEVER do. Because I know that I won't like what I see. I will only see a double chin or a weird smile or how one of my eyes kinds of droops down more than the other one or something else very particular about myself that maybe no one else sees but is glaringly obvious to me.

Now that I have a baby this issue has come to my attention even more. I pretty much have the camera out every second I am with him. I probably have 1000 pictures of his new little life but only about 4 with me in them. Some of that is because usually it's just the two of us and I'm not really good at the selfie. Also, I always feel a little awkward when my husband and I are together and we are doing something fun and I say "Hey babe, take a picture of me." This is probably an extension of the aforementioned insecurity. However, the biggest reason there are only 4 pictures of me is because I really don't want to see what I look like. Most of the time I can convince myself I look a certain way and pictures always kind of slap me in the face with reality.

Here is an example of this. This was Ev's first adventure on a slide. He looks adorable, of course. The sun is shining. We are together and both smiling and there is so much love just screaming out of this picture. But my first thought when I saw it was, "too bad I'm not wearing something a little cuter, wow my hair is messy, nice double chin Sara...etc, etc."

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE! The rational side of me knows this.


Facebook and blogs have perpetuated this problem. How is everyone else so perfect? These are the questions I ask myself. How are their houses so cute, and their husbands so fashionable, and how are they always wearing heels even on laundry day? Also, how is everyone so good at photography and so freakin' photogenic? Why is everyone constantly on vacation, or on road trips, or moving into new beautiful houses? And why are there kids always in clean shirts and they don't have any boogers on their faces or eye crusties. How do they all have the energy to get all dolled up for date nights when all I want to do is get take out and be able to wear my sweatpants???

I could go on but I won't. I know that the internet is not reality. We are all guilty of painting our lives with the nicest brushes, the prettiest colors. I know this isn't going to change, because really, would I want to read or look at a blog where the woman was always complaining about her crappy life and posting picture after picture of herself in her ratty sweatpants collection? Probably not. So the cure is not the internet changing, the cure is for me to embrace my own life, my own face. To not get so caught up in wishing I was perfect and being able to look at the positives more and the negatives less.

I'm certainly not writing this so everyone can tell me how pretty they think I am. I'm writing this because I don't want to let this be my reality. I want Everett and any other children we might have to be able to look at pictures of this time in their lives and see how much love we have for them, to see how happy we were (hopefully still are!) and young we looked and be able to laugh at our funny clothes. I don't want my dumb insecurities to rob them of that. So this is a reminder to myself to get over myself.