I joined Instagram in July of 2011. I’m proud to say I’ve had the same Instagram account (with a few name changes) along the way. That means I have thousands of photos on my account. There are grainy photos of my shoes, a selfie at the last Harry Potter movie premiere, early outfit photos in the mirror, terrible food photos, and more. As time went on, I stopped using the 1970s-ish Kelvin filter and the frames and my feed morphed from grainy to slightly less grainy photos of my work day, coffee, my keyboard. When I was pregnant with Forrest, it was belly pictures—taken in my work office bathroom, documenting my outfit and belly every day. After I had Forrest, it was baby pictures.
Since around 2018, I’ve tried to do all the things the Instagram gurus suggest: planning out my content, aiming for more curated images and styling. There were periods of time I felt like I totally nailed it and then periods of time where I hated what I was doing and felt no motivation to post anything. Since my job is to plan social media for businesses, I felt an intense pressure to make my own internet presence do what I was suggesting they do. But overall, I found it exhausting and especially in the last 2 years, a lot of the joy I feel about social media has been sucked out of it for me. I still love planning other people’s content, but I realized I don’t really want to be a content creator on my own.
About a month ago, I asked myself, why don’t I just post like it’s 2011 again? What’s wrong if I only get 20 likes on a picture? Who cares? Does it really matter?
It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter at all. It’s just Instagram. It’s just my Instagram. I can do whatever I want on it.
So I did.
I have had more fun on social media, specifically Instagram, since I started doing this. I’ve felt more creative and happy and carefree about the whole thing rather than stressing about if I was doing the right things. I have particularly enjoyed posting mirror photos of my outfits at work—are they the best photos in the world? Absolutely not. But hopefully people like seeing my outfits because I enjoy sharing them.
Another huge reason I started doing this is really about letting go of my feelings of perfectionism. I have always felt like nothing I did was good enough: the project I received praise for could have been, or should have been better; my house could be cuter or cleaner or different.
Feeling low level dissatisfaction with everything in my life and everything I do is probably a by-product of my low self-esteem and also probably a reason for my low self-esteem. They feed into each other, creating a horrible feedback loop. When I let go of feeling perfect, when I just let myself do things that are fun, I can feel the difference. Letting go of looking a certain way, having a certain kind of house, posting a certain kind of content… it’s really freeing.
Showing myself kindness and finding joy in little things has been important for me, especially in the last years. I still have times where I become snappy and joyless, mainly because I’m overstimulated or too anxious—but those times have become fewer and farther between. It takes a lot of work, but I’m becoming the person I always wanted to be deep down. It’s not what I thought it would look like, but it’s real joy, instead of an allusion of perfection.
There you have it, folks: what I started posting whatever I wanted on Instagram again. Coffee cups and mirror selfies and whatever filter I have been making for my autumn pack this year. Park photos and candids and early morning breakfasts. It’s better than trying to curate it, that’s for sure.