Profile Pictures

A friend recently asked me why my profile showed a big gray question mark instead of my picture.  I had never really thought about it.  When I created the profile in question, I didn't have a (decent) picture of me to post.  I found decent pictures later, but never got around to updating my profile.  The truth was I didn't particularly care about whether it had a picture.  But now that I'd been called on it, I decided I needed to post a picture.


Now here comes the hard part -- picking a picture.  There are pictures of me with family, pictures of me with friends, pictures of me alone.  There are pictures of me with pretty scenery, pictures of me with landmarks, pictures of me at weddings, pictures of me sitting on the couch.  There are pictures of me with long hair, pictures of me with short hair.  There are pictures of me looking stunning (in my humble opinion), pictures of me where I should have a paper bag over my head.  As expected, there are pictures of me that I love and pictures of me that I want to burn.

I have a habit of over-thinking these things.  Case in point: I've had short hair for the last few years, but now it's long again.  So do I pick a picture with my short hair and have people say something about me picking an old picture of myself?  Or do I really pick an old picture of myself but that looks more like what I look like now?  Since jeans are part of my daily attire and make-up is optional, do I pick a picture where I'm dressed up or a more casual one.  Once again people would say something about never having seen me looking like that. 

After about a dozen more questions that really have no importance to anyone but me, I finally decided that whatever picture I chose was irrelevant.  No matter what I decided on, there will be that one person who makes a comment, but the vast majority of people won't care.  So I decided to pick a picture that I love.  The picture I selected was taken in 2006 while I was on vacation with my mom in Alaska.  I think it's a decent picture of me.  I'm not dressed up at all -- I'm wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, sunglasses, no make-up, and my hair is pulled up in a ponytail.  But what I love about this picture is that it makes me remember the great time I had with my mom during those two weeks.  Every time I look at it, I can't help but smile.