Friday, Mar. 25, 2005 - 4:58 p.m.
I collect my memories in scraps of paper.
I've been cleaning my room and I'm finding calendar pages and movie tickets and scraps of paper I wrote outlines of the big days on in piles around my room. This is because I've never been good at consistently keeping a journal, a good day to day journal.
I keep trying, and failing.
The longest stretch I managed was my time in Germany, which was abandoned right after I returned and had a big breakup. Something about that, the exhausting nature of it, kept me from being able to sit down and process my thoughts the way I wanted to.
Of course, after about 6-9 months I started another journal that lasted almost a year and then I took a trip to New York and got busy. Since then, I've not been able to get back in the swing of journaling.
Yet, something about my personality holds memories like this. I can look at a picture, and/or my paper scrap outline and remember an entire day....or more importantly the big moments of the day and overall feeling.
I found the scraps from my Grandmother's funeral. There was no time to write, even then when I probably needed it. I have an outline of the day we found out, the obituary from the newspaper, one actual hand written journal entry from the first n ight of the viewing when I couldn't sleep, a thank you note from my grandfather for coming, the card of the funeral home and address of the priest, as well as a random card from a woman.
All this stuff adds up to remind me of driving to Michigan when grandma was in the hospital (and talking to the lady in the waiting room that gave me the card whose husband was dying and had no one). It reminds me of my mother's phone call early the morning of the 16th, of the hurried trip to her house and then to Michigan. Calling all my teachers to tell them I'd be gone. The whole viewing, the funeral, all of it, is back clear.
Happier examples are there too of course. The notes that remind me of my trips to TN after my move to NY, my first date with Jairo, my internship summer, etc.
It's almost like making those notes cemented these things in my memory to begin with. Or perhaps certain times are just always goign to be more strong than others. But I know that I do have stronger memories of the times I've at least done something, so I'm trying to get myself to actually write journals, and in the meantime I guess I'll deal with my scraps.
This has bled over onto my computer. I have random notepad files of something I want to remember.
I also hope that at some point, I can find a way to organize them into something a little more cohesive and less messy.
