The other day I met my friend William for lunch. William, a loyal reader of my blog asked me a really funny question. He asked, “Do you plan crazy things each week as a family so you have something to blog about, or are all the fun things you do just a regular part of your life?”

His second question made me burst out laughing. He then asked, “How can it be that your family is so happy all the time?”

It made me think of that quote, “Remember, as far as anyone knows, our family is normal.”

For the record, our family is normal. The kids fight. Dave and I natter at each other over closing the closet doors, how to load the dishwasher, and which way the toilet paper roll should hang on the hanger. (Luckily with three women in the house, we’ve trained our only male to leave the toilet seat down). We have our issues and challenges. Heck we even have a teenager in the house—‘nuff said.

We have our share of bad days and sad days, but we tend not to share these online. When Dave’s Mom passed away last year, we grieved privately.

Some may accuse us of whitewashing our lives on social media and not being authentic. I think it’s only natural we share the happy times in our lives. It’s no different than the days of yesteryear of photo albums and memory books. If you open the dusty pages of an old photo album, what do you see? Pictures of babies being born, graduations, weddings–the special moments in our lives we want to capture, remember and cherish, not photos of times of tears or fears or uncertainty in our lives.

With time, our memories become whitewashed. These images become our past. It is as it should be.

The interesting thing with social media is it can equally compel us to share a glimpse into our authentic selves. I remember reading with tears in my eyes the heart-wrenching posts on Facebook by Jann Arden when her father passed away and Sheryl Sandberg when her husband passed away. These two incredible women bared their souls in a time of immense grief and undoubtedly helped scores of others dealing with loss in their lives.

This week’s challenge is to share something happy and something real online. Be authentic, but know it’s okay to share the happier times. After all, focusing on the good in our lives is not a bad thing.