I am vain

Recently at my parents house I was looking through old pictures. There were some pretty awful pictures of me. Yes, some were in my awkward tween/teenage years. But there were some more recent in my adult life. 

There is this one picture of my Grandmother, my mom & my first child. She was just a month old, and I looked awful - words can't describe how torn up I looked :) I used to despise that picture because of how bad I look. Now I have grown to love that picture. I have that memory of my Grandmother meeting my first child. I have that treasure of 4 generations in a picture.

I realized, digital photography has made me vain (well, I made myself this way). The immediate, view the picture - double check my features - hair out of place, eyes closed, double chin <gasp> is getting to be too much. 

In the olden day pictures - I was just plain happy, it didn't matter if my gums were too big for my teeth. It didn't matter if I was laughing so big you could see the fillings in the back of my mouth. It was the true me, the one that my family & friends saw every day, and still loved me. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy now. I do have a loooooong history of taking pictures with friends and having to retake it 20 times to get one where you don't see all my flaws.

So although I'm not completely "healed" :) I am learning to accept my yellow fake tooth, bags under my eyes and my double chin. This is what I look like all the time. This is how my kids see me. This is who I am. So you will see more pictures of me looking real. Yes I will still edit pictures, yes I will still crop out some things, but I won't be the annoying friend that makes you retake a gazillion times anymore :)

I may or may not be guilty of saying this :)