Join Me

I've never been a journal keeper; it always seemed so daunting of a task to have something to say everyday. However, I am a story teller through conversations, scrapbooking and this blog. Maybe the need for an audience is what stops me from keeping a journal.

Unfortunately though, what I find is that if I don't relive the story either through conversation or scrapbooking soon after it occurs or right after a memory overwhelms me the details are lost. And it is my opinion that it is truly the small details that make a great story. It is suggested by many a great scrapbooker to keep little notepads around you to document real time.

I've always thought what a great idea! I've bought several little notepads and even altered a spiral to capture snippets of our life with Garrett. (There is a picture of the altered spiral in the slide show ) However, the spiral contains all of 2/3 pages of writing since October 2007!

What in the world is holding me back? There are at least a dozen things every day that I know I want to remember. It kills me that I've already forgotten so many details of Garrett's first years. I can't even begin to imagine what I'll forget five years from now.

I've come to the realization that the pretty little notebook was holding me back. For some reason I felt as though I had to have it "just so" in the notebook. I had spent so much time creating it; how could I just scribble in it? The need for it to be pristine held me back from doing it at all.

I only came to this realization after reading Life Artist by Ali Edwards. In one of the fabulous pages of the book she gave permission for these notebooks to be far from perfect. Basically, they are there to serve as a dumping ground. This is no different than what I've read before but for some reason her words were the push I needed.

So, yesterday I started scribbling away. Not in my sprial notebook; I'm not evolved enough to let go my need for just so, just yet. However, the notebook I'm using is little so the white space doesn't make me feel as though I have to write a novel and tiny enough to fit in my purse. I’ve become more aware that the world around me keeps jogging my memory.

Today I've already scribbled 5 snippets. So cool that one of my snippets is a memory from my teenage years triggered by a car I saw at the stop light on the way to drop Garrett off at school!

Will you join me?

lovemon