…did it really fall?
I have been known to do a good amount of instagramming. Since reading a book in middle school where one of the characters carries a camera everywhere because she doesn’t ever want to miss a memory, I’ve been obsessed with taking photos of important events. (Yes, I take cues for life from books. Brandon would say this is why I was a weird kid. He would be right.)
I always feel the pressure to document everything, out of a little social media FOMO (fear of missing out, as the kids say it these days). I’m worried that if I don’t take a picture, I’ll forget what happened, as if the whole event is completely invalid if it isn’t saved securely to my iCloud and uploaded to my Facebook or Instagram.
As Brandon and I drove to the mountains for a week of camping with his family, you can only imagine my horror when my phone went completely dead halfway through the drive. There are no chargers in the mountains. This means there would be no pictures.
How would I ever document my trip? How would anyone know that I:
* Caught 11 fish and wrestled them out of the water with my worm-covered hands
* Wore a big sun hat with pigtails and my obnoxious Michelle Obama tee shirt
* Ate some awesome campfire food
* Attempted fly fishing and wasn’t one bit good at it
* Had some quality time with Brandon and his family?
As I sat in front of the campfire and tried not to get eaten alive by ginormous mountain bugs, I surprisingly didn’t feel any FOMO. I wasn’t upset by the amount of photos I didn’t take. I wasn’t worried about remembering my experience, because you know what? It was pretty darn memorable, even if it’s now not so instagrammable.
To give you an idea of what went down, here is the one photo I took, along with some awesome stock photos. Enjoy.
The one photo I took. You can’t see my eyes or the fact that Michelle Obama’s face takes up my whole shirt.
There’s Brandon peeking out of our accommodations. Pretty comfy.
Sitting around the campfire was one of my favorite things.
Brandon’s dad made some delicious breakfasts.
I caught 11 trout, and named each one. Templeton is the classiest trout you’ll ever meet.
As you can see, I was pretty excited to be there.
And there’s the happy couple. Our height difference isn’t as obvious here.
What do you think about photo-taking? Is it helpful, meaningful, or distracting?
Pinstripes&Lipgloss 