seeing life through a rose colored filter

I have literally thousands of photos on my iPhone at any given moment. It’s become second nature to use it to constantly document my life as I go about my day– the sweet, the surprising, the routine, the beautiful–it all gets snapped. And a tiny fraction of those photos gets sent through what is probably my most favorite app: Instagram, where photos are cropped into squares, run through filters that mimic the look of old-fashioned film, and shared on a timeline among similar photos from all of my friends.

I know it might seem silly to say this about an app, but Instagram literally makes my life better. I’ve said it before when talking to fans who also love the app, but I feel that going through my day, looking for moments to Instagram, forces me to be more aware of the beauty and amazement all around me. And being able to see similar moments shared by people I care about? Super special.

It’s why I mostly loved this piece on Huffington Post from another mom about how Instagram serves as sort of a light in the midst of a lot of the difficulties of parenting. However, the author feels like the filter of Instagram– both the literal filters of the film and the way we each filter what we decide to share– necessitates a kind of confessional, a disclaimer that her life isn’t always as pretty as it may appear onscreen. I guess I’m just not sure that’s necessary. After all, and I’m only half-joking, isn’t the sharing what’s hard what Twitter is for?

I don’t think I or my friends are somehow being false or one-sided by choosing to mostly share beauty and interest and humor through our Instagram feeds. Instead, we’re looking on the bright side of life. Heck, sometimes we’re clinging to it. And that’s OK. It’s necessary, even, in a world where we have dozens of outlets that give us negativity and bad news, to have one that focuses on the good and beautiful.

All photos above from my Instagram feed, where you will find me as erniebufflo.