My friends like to call me the elephant. No, not in a cruel weight joke (they surely wouldn’t be my friends in that case) but because I seem to remember everything. My trick: I write it all down.

I’ve been keeping a diary since at least forth grade, and I haven’t let up since. Sure, I upgraded from my tiny Snoopy diary with the padlock to an electronic form (really just saved word documents each month that I hide on a flash drive) but I still find it just as important as I did when I was a mere nine year old. I love being able to remember any major event in my life, both good and bad.

Writing in a diary is like a free version of therapy. Yes, I do love venting to friends and it is important to have shoulders to cry on, but sometimes you just need to let it all out. There is nowhere better than in the comfort of your own journal or laptop, where you can free write every single word that comes to your mind.

Nobody will judge what you say in a personal diary, because nobody else can read it (as long as you keep it well hidden!). My best friend has been advised that if anything were to happen to me, she is to take said flash drive and dispose of it properly. Some things are just meant to stay private…

I admit, it can be a hassle to drag myself to write every single day even when nothing of interest happened, but I know in the long run I will be happy to know it all. The past few years I have even begun making ‘a year in review.’ These are separate documents for each year where I highlight the major events that happened every month. It’s fun to look back and see at a glance all the craziness that happened over the past twelve months.  It also puts life into perspective because everything seems a lot less major when looking at the big picture rather than just one event.

Maybe I’m just overly anal, but remembering everything is vital to me. One could say Alzheimer’s is my biggest fear… There is something comforting in knowing exactly what I was doing on this day three years ago and being able to quickly check it if I was unsure.

I even found a fabulous alternative for you Lovelies who don’t have all that much time/dedication to write:

One Line A Day by Chronicle Books, available @ Amazon.com
While the picture somewhat describes it all, each day in this little book has a page to write a brief sentence or two about the day. The book has room for five years worth of these – that’s A LOT of memories. I’m sure you can already guess I own this as well…

Lovelies, do you still keep a diary or journal? Is there a way you record important memories in your life?

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