Social media is amazing for so many things. Sharing baby pictures with family out of state, keeping up with old friends and staying up to date on people’s lives.

It can all look so picture perfect as friends share their favorite images from professional photographers of their polished family wandering around the woods in matching sweater sets. It can be so perfect you start to doubt your own life and your yoga pants covered in animal hair.

But it’s because of social media that this really awesome group called The F.I.L.M project reached out to give our family the gift of photos. This was something I wanted but just couldn’t justify spending the money right now. The group is great because they hook you up with local photographers in your area who donate their time and talent to capture the memories of family’s struggling with a loved one who is sick.

Joe and I are vain. We’ll admit it.  We spend a lot of time staring at ourselves in the mirror and Joe uses an unnatural amount of hairspray in the bathroom. So, since Joe is a bit skinny from surgery and I’m, well, a  bit round from baby, we weren’t sure family photos were a must have right now.

This is what you don’t see on the highly edited and approved photos posted on social media sites. You don’t see the back story. You don’t know what’s really going on in people’s lives, their insecurities and stresses.

It’s easy to get jealous of what everyone else is doing. Joe and I had to cancel our honeymoon to St. Lucia because he had just been diagnosed and was starting treatment. We went on a Facebook strike for awhile because we hated every bikini clad couple we saw sharing their paradise pictures while we were soaking in the rays of chemotherapy.

My single friends hate the married people, in love and taking over their timeline with baby pictures.

My married friends hate the fun-loving, bar-going single people, who still have their waistline.

The truth is- no one’s life is picture perfect. I had to laugh as I looked at our beautiful photos from Marta Boschmann .  That morning, moments before she arrived, our dog puked all over our bed and I was scrambling to pull a quilt out of storage. My hair is curly for the pictures because I didn’t have time to blow dry. Joe was flinging open windows because our house suddenly turned into a sauna as we were all trying to get ready.

We know the backstory and the chaos that is life. I’m glad we didn’t wait to look exactly how we wanted. I’m glad we were given this warm and wonderful woman who captured our best angles.  I’m so glad we have these memories forever. I hope I look back and remember the story that lead up to the perfectly posed family photo.  And I hope I remember the next time someone else’s perfect life is on my computer screen that there’s always more to the story and that’s what makes it beautiful.