@hayley_malia

Today, while feeding my mothers coworkers 2 year old, I realized there was optimal selfie lighting engulfing the kitchen where we resided for that moment. I adjusted my chair, my hair, the table, Ian, the boxes on the table, and danced around next to the blank wall taking probably near 60 photos that look all very similar. After editing an average selfie, in a red thrift store flannel with day two curled hair with a large knot in the back, I sent the photo to two of my best friends asking if the photo I had spent over an hour working on, was postable. I was secretly hoping they would reply with something like "You have to post that!" or "That is such a good photo of you!", but actually receiving replies that showed they actually did not care wither I posted the photo or not.

When I finally posted the selfie, I seemed to have checked my phone every minute, almost praying for a notification from Instagram of a new life or comment. Time marched on and I was still so ridiculously consumed with my arguably narcissistic post. Now, when I say narcissistic I don't mean to attack those who post constant selfies, however isn't the idea of a selfie fairly self interested? A selfie is a post, not of people you love, or places you've been, or a hobby you're passionate about, but of how you want to be perceived by hundreds of people who more than likely do not genuinely know you.

Like someone with an addiction, I continued to check my phone ever few minutes, looking at the slowly growing, blue number on the bottom left side of the photo of me in my red Flannel. I began looking at my other photos, wondering why many of them had received 75+ likes where as this one, which I spent so much time worrying about and working on received only 59 likes after 6 hours.

With what I considered not a acceptable number I went through some of my friends posts with 150 likes and became jealous of their "fame". Thinking about how many people must like them and how their lives are so much more interesting. All the while, little innocent Ian happily plays with his trucks, I sat in a pool of self pity wishing I was prettier, with a more interesting life, with 300 or more new followers who would like all my photos, and fall in love with my almost deceiving Instagram.

When someone opens my Instagram feed you see lots of pretty photos with my sorority and my loving friends. There are photos of my family and quite a few photos of me that I demanded my sister to take. The entirety of my feed is so colorful and full of fun, but there are no photos of me missing my parents, or the opening in my heart from high school friends removing you from their lives for no clear reason. I have no posts of me crying in my car in different parking lots almost once a week all through a toxic relationship, or the blueish green color I associate with guilt that I feel in the pit of my stomach and lump in my throat from when my words cut my family or boyfriend or friends. There is such a large part of my life I would never post. I lead an entirely different life than the girl seen when @hayley_malia comes up on Instagram.

I have to remind myself that my likes do not show my soul, or who really anyone's. Instagram fuels many of my insecurities but eventually that flame will burnout.