There are many things that happen in our lifetime, some good and some bad. For me personally, I seem to be able to remember the momentous occasions, usually, because of the way my brain works, the bad ones. But there are also milestones too, not necessarily amazingly good things, but times that meant something or dates that had significance.
It seems though that as I get older the small but still important things become more faded, I find myself relating dates to before my leg injury and after, because that is a date I never seem to forget.
I recently found an old journal, it was not detailed descriptions, but more snapshots of where I was at that particular time. It jogged my memory and brought back a few names and locations that have long been forgotten. It was fun to read, but also difficult because it made me realise that my anxiety issues have been with me for longer than I thought.
Blogging for me was never about sharing all the details of my life, I tended to write when there was a lot going on in my head and I needed to clear some space. This means that I didn’t always note the smaller less important things and now I am beginning to wish I had.
It made me think about whether this is something I need to change in order to help me remember. Is my old lady brain going to progress from more than asking myself what I went into a specific room for, because that in itself is extremely frustrating sometimes believe me.
There has to be a benefit of noting down important things, like when and how I met friends and also sometimes how I lost them. Important places I visited and the memories that became associated with them. Losses and gains, they are all important in their own way to form the foundations of a life lived and also perhaps to remind my brain on its bad days that there were gains, not just losses.
I haven’t come to any firm decisions yet, but it’s something I might quite like to try.
Hey brain, here’s to making memories and actually remembering them.
What about you, do you journal to remember ?