The Little Notebook of Memories

Today is not really a particularly important or special day. It is a day much like every other normal day, me striking a balance of pushing towards goals and finding peace; finding the balance between silence and music.

I'm staring at the calendar on my taskbar at the bottom of my screen and thinking, "January 28th... January 28th... another month is almost gone, and wasn't it just the new year? Wasn't it just my birthday?"

Time is slipping, it seems, the older I get. "Old" people have been telling me that it would my entire life, and I simply didn't believe them.

Yesterday, I looked through my Senior book from high school. I remembered writing in it that I couldn't really imagine myself in my 30s. I found it...yes... the inscription in my fluid, swirly handwriting, that stated defiantly that I could not imagine myself as 'old'. And here I am, chronologically 34, but I still feel 17 on the inside. I've had double that many birthdays, and yet I still gush over pretty dresses, still stare with mouth agape in excitement and wonder at hot air balloons, still get breathless when I walk out my door at night to go somewhere and then BAM - the night sky hits me, silver stars sparkling in the inky depths.

For Christmas, my parents gave me this little notebook.

Inside the cover, they glued a rectangle of paper with these directions:

"This is a Memory Account Journal. Take this $50 and open a new savings account you will call your 'Memory Account'. When a new memory is created that you feel is notable, something you want to remember, write a note about it in this Memory Journal. Next make a deposit in your memory account. You should set a goal of how long and what you are saving for with your Memory Account. Whatever it is, remember to record and savor the memories. At the end of your set time, you are to take a few minutes and read the 'Memory Journal' before withdrawing the money. Then take the money and use it towards that something special you always wanted or that special place you have always wanted to go."

Inside of the little book was a $50 check to get my memory account started.

I deposited the $50 into my existing savings account (which I do not use) and decided that I would do this thing that they challenged me to do, trying to not write in memories that I already have that are priceless to me, because I could not quantify those into a monetary value. And if I somehow could quantify those, my most treasured memories (how do you turn something like birthing a child into a monetary value of worth?), I wouldn't have enough money to cover the deposit anyway.

So. I decided to work backwards, just a little bit, from Thanksgiving weekend 2013. Something magical happened that weekend that I wanted to add to the memory book, because I am a date-keeper, one of those people who loves dates and remembering important ones.

I imagine that when people do things like this, they record major events in their life. But I caught myself yesterday writing in the amazing sunset from Sunday, thinking, "it was a million dollar sunset. How am I supposed to make a deposit for this?!?!"

I put $27.50 into my savings account, with a little promise to add to it later, for the sunset.

The Million Dollar Sunset, taken Sunday January 26, with my iPhone. It was so much better in person.

Reading back over the entries since Thanksgiving, it is interesting to see what memories I track and what I have written about them. Reading them again feels strange, like standing outside my own body and experiencing it as an outsider; like going over to your grandmother's house, exploring the attic, and finding her old journal. There's an element of the familiar, but still a strange, spectator-like wonderment about it. I've recorded small moments, mainly. Things you might not, and even I might not, usually expect to find in a notebook called a "Memory Journal". Sunsets, unusually warm January days, one particularly productive day that I was proud of, small special moments with my people, sweet things my babies have said, and especially starry nights that took my breath away.

Reading through them, I am wondering over this 'deposit' business. Each memory got a relatively small deposit into my savings account, but each memory feels as glorious and priceless as the next, and attaching the monetary value seems to cheapen them - however, I am saving, and I'm still rolling around in my head what is to be the Big Goal That I Am Saving For. I haven't decided. Most likely it will be a trip; most likely, it will be Scotland.

In any case, I feel very lucky that my parents laid this challenge on me. It made me realize the importance of saving for something big, and noticing the important little things along the way that get you there. Like planting the lavish garden, but stopping to admire each rose as it blossoms.

What a wonderful way to spend (and save) a lifetime.