The two women sitting across from me on the train were completely trashing someone (who they apparently consider a friend) over her “fake” social media posts.

Well scrubbed children.
Beach vacations.
Laughing friends.
Gourmet meals, Christmas trees, and manicured gardens.

“Why does she have to rub our noses in it?” lamented one.
“It’s all a put on,” said the other, “she’s always been a bit of a stuck up b*tch.”

It’s so easy for us to judge, and serial posters get an especially bad rap for offering up an exclusively “best of” slice of real life.

I get why that feels fake.

The truth is that images have a ton of power – they capture our attention, spark imagination and inspire emotion.

They tell a story.

It’s all too easy to forget that what they’re not telling, is the whole story. And that most of the story we get from seeing an image is made up by – you guessed it – us.

That doesn’t mean that the photographs that represent our best moments aren’t part of our real story – they are.

They’re often the part that we’re most proud of.

Last Christmas, I posted a picture of a cookie tray that my daughter made.

If you’d seen it on facebook, you may have given it a “like” – thrown me some shade for showing off – felt bad about your own cookie tray – or had any other myriad of responses.

You would have created your own story about what it meant and maybe even why I posted it.

It’s the natural way we process information.

In truth, I posted that picture for the same reason that most people post – that cookie tray represented things that really matter to me.

I can’t explain why they matter, but they do…

That she, like my father and his father before him is a natural baker – one that looks at recipes for inspiration, but never follows one.

How her ADHD mind – so different than mine – had ALL of those cookie projects (and a bûche de Nöel) going in unison – looking like irreversible chaos until in the last moments, every piece fell together.

How our ENTIRE house – not just the kitchen, was covered in a film of flour and it took all Sunday morning for us to de-crust the baseboards and the knobs of every kitchen cabinet.

How proud she was of the boxes she made and delivered to friends and neighbors.

How proud I am that she’s my daughter.

This holiday, don’t let the haters stop you from sharing what matters to you.

And maybe we can all do a better job of seeing what others post through a more forgiving lens?