Dear Reader,
Back when cameras were one thing and phones another, my mother had to take film to the store to be developed before we could see our photos. Whenever she returned with fresh prints, my sisters and I eagerly thumbed through them. Then she arranged the pictures on adhesive pages in a family album, discarding only those that were hopelessly out of focus.
These days I take photos with my smartphone, which allows me to immediately inspect them and decide which ones to crop, alter, or delete. I’m left mostly with close-ups of smiling faces, the best of which I circulate online as proof — to myself as much as to family and friends — that I am living a good life. I share snapshots of my children laughing together instead of bickering or ignoring each other; of my husband and me in a rare moment of playful exuberance while on vacation; of our garden after it’s watered and freshly mulched instead of wilting and overrun with weeds. From what I see on social media, it seems that other people are as selective as I am. Sometimes, after scrolling through so many celebratory pictures, I start to feel as if I am somehow lacking — until I remind myself that, despite appearances, no life unfolds as a series of picture-perfect moments.
