For as long as I can remember (or since high school because my memory is not that great) I have always told myself to keep a blog, journal, some written record of my day-to-day life.
Having those little moments and feelings on paper (or online) forever seemed like the greatest idea in the world. How cool will it be when I am 30, 40, 50 years old to look back and see my sob-story about how the boy I had a crush on in school actually had a crush on someone else, the test I failed, the friend I fought and then made up with?
I am not going to be naive and say that I am making a list of resolutions that I will vow to keep because we all know that never actually ends up happening.
However, I still cannot shake this constant nagging in the back of my head to keep up with a journal/blog. Every once in a while I start off pretty strong, taking a few minutes at the end of the day to just write down what is going on. But that quickly ends, when classes, friends and life seem to just get in the way.
Today, while making a weak attempt at studying for the 2 finals I have left, a friend texted me about her high school boyfriend and we had a conversation about how different things are now, how much we’ve changed. This conversation made me wonder, why do I feel this constant urge to remember every little detail of my life?
Am I scared that my best years have already past? Of course not, there is so so much that lies ahead of me. Am I worried that things that once consumed my entire world will be forgotten? Maybe, but isn’t that what life is all about? Why should I spend so much time worrying about preserving the past instead of focusing on my present?
I thought I wanted to keep a journal to track these changes, and I still do, but is it really necessary to write down every single day, every little detail? It’s not. Yes I may forget what my friends and I stayed up talking about until 3 in the morning last night, but I will never forget the friends or the impacts they have made on my life.
Yes I will, but will I forget how the relationships have taught me more about love and life than I could ever get from a blog? No.
Will my anxiety and distress over my finance grades fade to the very back of my consciousness? Yes, but why would I want to be constantly reminded of the stress I endured anyways?
I used to view blogging as a way to preserve my memories, but now I am beginning to realize that the important ones will always be there. If I am constantly so obsessed with remembering everything that is happening in my life I will forget to truly experience it.
So I guess I now have my “resolution”, for lack of a better word, to better appreciate my life as I am living it.
To take a second every now and then to think, wow this moment is so exciting, sad, stressful, pathetic, indescribable, what have you, because what is the point in preserving memories if you didn’t take the time to fully experience them?