Small Moments, Big Memories: The Importance of Documenting Your Life
My heart flutters at the thought of flipping to an empty page, a blank canvas for my thoughts or more poetically, a sanctuary to encapsulate a fleeting moment. Journaling, a timeless ritual, has a subtle way of savoring the essence of our daily existence.
My first memory of this personal ritual really starts during my pre-teen era. I spent hours jotting down my reflections in those colorful, textured diaries that sometimes dangled a lock and key signaling the importance of the treasured secrets it kept.
Around the same time, mornings at school started with a daily writing prompt scripted in chalk.
In retrospect, as much as it was to elevate our written skills it also served as a documentation of our interests and beliefs at that time.
In the whirlwind of our fast-paced, digital age, where moments scurry by constantly, the art of documenting our lives in an intentional way seems to have taken a backseat. Caught up in the enchantment of instant gratification through social media, the value of physically preserving our personal narratives is often overlooked. Instead, a growing number of us have learned to rely on apps we have no control over to preserve some of our most precious memories.
The diaries of historical figures are often referenced to get an inside scoop of their lives, adventures and deepest thoughts. Pouring over them feels like a time traveling machine transporting the reader to different eras - a beloved quality that time capsules naturally embody. To create one means to prepare and preserve a collection of everyday artifacts and messages for someone to open in the future. A moment is captured in time, the same way one of my most treasured possessions, my journals, have done.
When I’m in one of my introspective moods, I read them like books and light up when I discover a small moment that was buried deep in the memory bank. A lot of times, those little things I forgot offer guidance in the present or serve as a reminder of how far I’ve come. This sentiment, echoed in bell hooks' journal excerpt shared via @thenapministry, beautifully encapsulates the essence of such reflective practice:
Being able to reflect on my inner thoughts is a gift. The things I was grateful for or what I was going through. Sometimes I even think about what my descendants will read and think about their matriarch. The sides of myself they’ll discover and may be surprised about.
The stories and traditions they’ll learn.
The wisdom I’ll pass down through the challenges I shared via written word.
All the versions of myself they’ll be able to connect to.
The preservation of my legacy is important to me, aways has been, and one way I’m able to document that is through consistently putting ink to paper in my personal keepsakes.
Through the act of journaling, we immortalize the ephemeral, creating a reservoir of memories that serve as a guide to appreciating the small moments that make each day and time period special.
Turns the mundane into something extraordinary.
Photos: Passages from Jean Michel Basquiat’s personal writings via ‘The Notebooks’ by Larry Warsh
As we inch towards another new month in 2024, I hope you think of ways to document the precious moments that are yet to come, whether that’s through journaling or some other form of memory keeping.
Sure, drop your photo dumps on IG, but think beyond the digital world too. Ask yourself, “What physical ways can I preserve my life and those around me this year?”
You’ll thank yourself later for it.
Need somewhere to start? Shop my new journals👇🏾
