song: magic by coldplay

read time: 3 mintues

i have a serious love for timehop. to start, lately it’s been bringing up my facebook interactions with my high school friends from ten years ago. p.s. can we just talk about how much facebook has changed? i used to write the most private stuff on people’s walls. literally. from how much money i was getting on a monthly basis from my parental units to all the details about the boys i was crushing on. thank God private messaging came along. if only mark zuckerberg would have brought it around sooner. he would have saved me some embarrassment. every time my friends sends me a screenshot, i end up laughing at how ridiculous i was.

yesterday, my timehop was a photo from two years ago of me and my OG best friend — my best friend of 24 years. yes, i have one of those! she texted me a screenshot of the photo and said, “p.s. you see this today? :)”  we reminisced a little, ooo-ed and aww-ed about how thankful we are for each other, and said we needed to take more photos together. then… it happened — the door opened. kelley said, “just teach me to be more photogenic like you.” i was multitasking at the moment, preparing some brand strategy ideas for a client, so i didn’t really think much about what i was saying. i just said what came to mind, “i literally practiced my smile in the mirror! haha my dad made me after i ruined the majority of our europe photos when i was 15.”  the conversation went on and to be honest — if anyone were to hack my imessages they’d realize just how absurd the conversation was. it was full of silly tactics to become photogenic — essentially, the conversation was the kind of stuff you don’t talk about or admit to anyone.

both of us were LOL-ing about the situation knowing it was out of control.

as kelley and i were texting back and forth about mary-kate and ashley smiles and practicing in the mirror while bored driving — i thought it would be funny to write about some of the things we all do, but never want to admit. because, why not! we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously…

so, here we go. maybe you’ll relate to one or two of these and we’ll all realize together that we are a little more human.

1. practice your smile in the mirror.
2. keep the tags on clothes, because you have a fear of commitment to them. [like what if you wear it once and want to return it? i haven’t returned anything. i always keep what i buy. but the tag always stays for months.]
3. completely stalk someone on social media, then when you meet them pretend like you don’t know anything about them.
4. plan your exit strategy in your head, for those painfully awkward conversations at weddings / social gatherings. [“i’m parched. i need to go find some water.” is my pathetic go-to.]
5. take a million selfies in order to get one “woke up like this” / effortlessly cool selfie.
6. “accidentally” text your ex “on my way” so he/she knows you aren’t sitting around missing him/her and that you have an actual life.
7. wear the same outfit two days in a row, because no one saw you wear it the day before. [always guilty of this.]
8. hide your credit card from yourself so you don’t spend money.
9. check social media. hit refresh. put your phone down. pick your phone up. check social media. put your phone down. hit the home button. check to see if you have any new notifications. swipe phone open. check social media. all within a matter of 5 minutes.
10. avoid opening facebook messages so the “read” notification doesn’t show up.

so, yeah. there’s that. admit it — you’ve done at least one of the above at some point in time. we all have. because, we’re human. let’s not take ourselves too seriously. life is way more fun when we laugh at the silly things we do that make us human.