I promise this isn’t going to get long or philosophical or even particularly deep.  It will include a few selfies though.

If you haven’t been living under a rock or away from social media, I am going to assume you know what a selfie is.  For my rock-dwelling, anti-social media readers (I’m sure there is at least one?), a selfie is a picture you take of yourself.  Let me get one thing really clear here, I am neither for or against selfies.  If that’s your thing, more power to you.  Selfie away.  Selfie the day.  Selfie slay.  Ok, gonna stop that train right there.  If you are abhorrently against selfies, you do you.  Shun the selfie.  I’m not going to try and change your mind.

What I am going to do is try and convince myself to take more selfies.  Not necessarily to share with the world, but to share with me.  If that sounds weird, it is.  But what’s weirder is that I actively dislike looking at pictures of myself.  Why?  Because I immediately zoom in on the flaws.

The acne that I STILL get at almost 30.

The ridiculously dark eyebrows that never match my hair and get super bushy.

The slight (and I mean slight) gap in my tooth that I know isn’t noticeable to anyone but me.

The lack of hair styling ability.  It skipped me and went right to my sister.  You’re welcome, Jodie.  I give of myself for you.

The clothes that are always the same.  Not because I don’t have nice clothes, I just never wear them.  Mostly because I would feel self-conscious.

Those are just a few of the things I see when I look at selfies.  And rather than deal with those feelings, I just don’t take selfies.  Problem solved, right?

Yeah, nice try Katie.  Just because I don’t deal with it doesn’t mean it isn’t there anymore.  But I realized the other day, I have so few pictures of me enjoying the things I love.  I mean other than my engagement and wedding photos, there are only a handful of me and my best friend (that’s you Adam) and the amazing things we’ve done over the past six years.

That’s a lot of missing photos.

Do I really want to miss out on the opportunity to document my life and happiness in a photo because my hair looks less than perfect?  Do I really want to not capture the pure joy of spending the day with my husband because my eyebrows are dark and bushy?  That sounds like the reasonings of a crazy person.  Eyebrows shouldn’t hold me back.

So I’ve been trying to selfie more.  It’s weird, it’s uncomfortable, I’m far from good at it, and I still feel ridiculously embarrassed when I do it in public.  But I’m doing it.  I’m taking the picture and I’m focusing on the memory I created.  Not the clothes I wore, the teeth in my smile, or any other wonkiness.  I won’t post every single selfie I take because, for the most part, they’re for me.  To remember and to document.

The happiness.

The love.

The laughter.

The joy.

Myself.