My Life is Not Instagram Content

My life isn’t content created for Instagram, though it certainly could be. I have a beautiful life. 

I won’t deny that aesthetics are important to me– I always like to feel put together and presentable. I wear makeup to work, and I plan my outfits in advance, and I always have my hair done in some sort of style. I care about how I am presented and perceived– but not necessarily online. 

I used to care more about how things looked from outsiders, and how my posts were received. I would say I’m not sure when this change took place, but actually,  I am. I stopped caring about outside validation after I began dating my now-husband, Gaven.

When Gaven and I started dating, we very quickly became serious about our future together. We were officially dating about a week after our first date, we exchanged declarations of love a few weeks after that, and were engaged a year later. I didn’t feel compelled to post about how great our relationship is, or about my hunky boyfriend, because I wanted to gatekeep him. It’s made me incredibly happy to keep our relationship private. As a result, a lot of my life became more private.

I say that, but I’ve always been a private person. I’ve thought often enough that I could have a successful social media presence if I wanted to. I have a beautiful, custom-built home, which I’ve designed and curated every room of. I love our home, with its somewhat rural charm, antique furniture that I’ve refinished, and our personal style throughout. Though I would never claim to have an eye for design, I do have my own personal tastes. I was voted “Best Dressed Teacher” by the students at my school, and if teenagers say it, you know it is true. They can be ruthless, and they don’t offer compliments if they don’t mean it. My aesthetics aren’t for everyone, but I have my own definition of “cool.” Even my car meets my definition of “cool”-- I drive a Jeep Wrangler that I’ve modified how I see fit. 

And I have hobbies! If there is one thing about myself that I truly love, it is my abundant personality, which again is not to everyone’s tastes, but I am proud to have hobbies and talents that I cultivate and work on consistently. I read, and I play instruments, and I embroider, and I curate my life in my image. And I don’t know how visible any of that is online. 

I’ve been thinking about Instagram images and the presentation of ourselves online. With graduation just having passed, I’ve been getting an abundance of requests from former students. I never let students follow me on social media until they are graduated and eighteen, and I can’t help but note how disappointed they seem to be when they realize that I haven’t been gatekeeping my social media from them for a sake of vastly interesting images of my personal life, but simply because I have boundaries. 

Social media can only tell pieces of the story, and people can only see what you choose to show about yourself. I choose to show more about myself through the way that I choose to show up every day.