Friday, June 1, 2018

Filtered

I love Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook. If you follow me on any of those platforms, you know this.

Let's talk about Facebook. I use this platform to work my makeup business and keep in contact with so many of my virtual special needs mamas. On my personal page, I share private photos of my kids, and I leave the photos for my business open to the public. I try to stay positive on Facebook. Even when I'm having a bad day, I post a motivational message every morning in my private group. Just hoping that I can touch one person's day.

On Instagram, I'm much more real. I recently started using Instagram stories to show some of my day. Especially now that the kids are out of school. Having David with me 24/7 can often make for an interesting day. It's been fun watching us touch the world through our very small space in this world.  I do keep things a little more real on Instagram. I touch on anxiety. Mine and Kyle's (although now that Kyle is older, we are really trying to be respectful of his input on what I post). Real special needs stuff. I ALWAYS keep my makeup pictures unfiltered on Instagram to avoid giving a false sense about a product. Instagram is quickly becoming one of my favorite outlets and I love the more intimate feeling there. If you want to follow me there, you can find me @nataliew1978.




Then there's Snapchat. I LOVE Snapchat. I love playing with the filters. I love the way it can make me look 15 years younger (LOL-But let's face it-I AM going to be 40. In like 5 months. We all want a little Snapchat fun in our midlife years.) I love the time that it gives me with my 12 year old in the mornings while we wait for his bus to get to the bus stop. Honestly, that time with him is hard to come by in these preteen years and pictures with OR without your mother just isn't that "cool" anymore. Unless you involve Snapchat filters. THEN I become cool. Well......as cool as I can be considering I do not allow Kyle to have his own Snapchat. I even think sometimes David actually notices that he looks like a cute little animal or that there are hearts floating over his head.




I also use Snapchat to send funny things in my day to my closer friends and Michael. I mean, who doesn't want to see me looking like a cute rabbit 4 times a day? I'm hoping the text that I include on the picture makes them laugh or smile. Because that's often what I aim for. (add me at nwatkins1978)




But we all know filters are just that. They filter your life. They show what I choose to show. There is an entire side of my life my social media platforms don't see. They don't see me frantically trying to stop a Gtube from leaking. Or me having one of my bi-weekly ugly cries. (Carrie Underwood is correct. I CAN'T cry pretty.) They don't see me changing that disgusting poop and pee soaked diaper. Or me yelling at my youngest child to pick something up for the 57th time in 7 minutes. My temper is hot and my emotions are uncontrollable. But that who I am. 

And while I'd love to be the girl with golden butterflies floating around her head and her almost 40 year old wrinkles erased all across her face..........


That's not really me. I'm the mom with the hot temper and uncontrollable emotions who likes to make her friends laugh via funny filters throughout the day. But I should be able to like myself completely unfiltered and raw. I am fun, smart, emotional, hot-tempered, unorganized, messy, good-hearted, and I love my family like crazy. Me unfiltered is not always the best me. But it's me. 

(Unfiltered Me)