I make my online life look better than it actually is.

I post the best pictures of me on Instagram. I post the funniest videos of my friends and me on Snapchat. I post the most aesthetic pictures on VSCO.

There aren’t any pictures of me crying, there aren’t any videos of me getting mad, there aren’t any pictures of gray skies on my VSCO.

At this point everyone knows that no one is happy twenty-four-seven; no one is always positive and perky—everyone experiences gray skies.

Photoshop is a powerful thing. It can take any gray sky, no matter how dark, and turn it into a watercolored sunset.

Over the summer VSCO was the app that I used, I loved taking pictures by the beach and editing them; increasing the brightness, adding 0.4 grain, and decreasing the contrast. I then posted the picture and it looked perfect, straight out of a magazine. 

My whole page is full of edited photos of my friends and I posing with our forty chicken nuggets and five large fries, the beautiful landscape in Ely Minnesota, my friends from The Central Trend throwing up peace signs, and my friend and I posing with Lightning McQueen outside our hotel in Orlando Flordia. 

All of those photos are edited.

Regardless if thirty minutes before the picture was taken I was upset about something, in that moment I was happy. I only post pictures that mean something to me.

Me crying, me being mad, and gray skies mean nothing to me, so I don’t post them. Each picture has a story.

The picture of my friends and I in our swimsuits is from this past summer; I hadn’t seen Kaylin in a couple of months. 

The picture of my dog, Bitty, and I was the day I found out I needed surgery and she was keeping me calm through the pain.

The picture of my old best friend and I from fourth grade is still so vivid in my memory.

The picture of my best friend, Payton, in front of the Gravitron in Traverse City, was when we went on vacation together to her grandparents’ house. It’s one of my favorite summer memories.

I want my VSCO to later remind me of all the good times I’ve had throughout high school; I don’t want to remember anything that is meaningless or depressing.

My friends make me happy. Smiles make me happy. Beautiful skies make me happy.

VSCO is my digital scrapbook, I don’t want to forget a single happy memory. My only job is to have a great time for the next four years of my life and take pictures along the way.

Sure, I’ll still edit the photos to make them brighter or take down the contrast but if the lighting is the only fake thing in those photos I think we are all set.

Those smiles are real. Those friends are real. Those pretty skies are real.

Me and every teen girl who has VSCO tucked away in some folder on her phone will continue to post happy memories and the orange, pink, and sometimes purple skies.

You only see smiling, you only see laughing, you only see positive messages, you only see meaningful pictures on VSCO.