Picture Perfect

It's so easy to look "picture perfect".

As a keen photographer that is one thing I have learned over the years. As I surf through the Internet and blogosphere I see all these "picture perfect" homes, families, animals, meals, knitted jumpers - lives. 

People say to me sometimes, based on having seen my photoblog or photos I have shared online, that I "must have an amazing garden".  I think, if only they knew! It's never all picture perfect.  Picture perfect is a lie. 

Leonard Nimoy's last tweet said:
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. 

Perfect moments can be caught by the camera.  Even that isn't always easy - but the right light, best time of day, a great camera, the right angle, the right cropping, the right editing - and often we can have it - picture perfect.    

The perfect moments can be real - or they can be staged.  An authentic perfect moment can be captured - or it can be created as a product to sell.  

As I surf through seemingly perfect lives I remind myself that they aren't real.  No one's life is always perfect.  We all have night and we all have day.  Life sometimes hands us perfect moments to cherish - and it also hands us hard, tough, difficult, ugly days when we  can feel overwhelmed by a sense of failure or loss, are fighting to breathe and feel like we're buried.  On those days I remind myself, "We're not living in Perfect".  I will never be perfect.  It will never be perfect. 

There's a freedom that comes with that.  There are weeds in my garden.  The house needs a good clean.  The dog desperately needs a bath and a groom. My hair is a mess.  Last week I spent too much money. That's real life.  That's the way it goes sometimes.  And that's okay.  It's okay to be real.  Real is good too. Give yourself  a break.  A photoshopped life is a lie.



A corner of  our - very imperfect - garden: