Forget You Forgot You

I wish I had continued to keep journals after high school. Now that I look back at my life there are events I cannot remember. My memories of certain events in my life are sketchy at best. The other day, one of my college friends was talking about an incident I was part of. I really didn’t remember it. I sat there trying to reach back into my memories, but it wasn’t there. I couldn’t remember to save my life. The same thing had happened with a high school friend a few weeks earlier.

In high school I had an English teacher that encouraged the class to keep a journal. Actually, it was a part of the class to write something in the journal every day. I kind of kept it up when I went to college. Once I started life after graduation I didn’t really document anything. I only wrote little notes in small daily planners.

I destroyed those planners during a purge session years ago. I think my mindset was that I really didn’t want to remember some of those things. My first job, the boy I spent the day crying over, meeting my soon-to-be husband would only be remembered in my head. I have picture memories of my wedding, our first house, my two successful pregnancies. No written documentation. I don’t really know how I was feeling during those occasions. I only have my foggy memory to rely on for some of my early memories.

I was going through items in an old trunk a few years ago and found those high school journals and notes of events I had written down. I decided then that I would start journaling again. I have, unfortunately, lost a good amount of memories in my life. Thankfully, it’s not everything. There are events I actually remember moment by moment.

I believe my vision, my purpose, is to write. As someone who aspired to be a writer early in my life, I’m so sorry I destroyed those written memories. That high school English teacher was right. Write something, anything, every day.

How’s your memory? Have you ever kept a journal?