Writing to Preserve 2006



Perhaps it is just me, but is seems life is getting more and more hectic as the years pass. I have purchased no small amount of technological goodies to make my life easier, but the work just seems to pile up. Throw in the time intensive aspects of families and personal life issues and time just rolls by. Frankly, I can't believe it is already the end of 2006. At this rate, it will be 2026 before I even notice it.

As time blows past us, it is easy to let your once sharp memories turn into hazy recollections. It seems only yesterday that I was 25. In February, I will turn 40. Sigh. As I have aged, and not necessarily gracefully, I have started to forget more things than I would like to admit. You probably have to. They tell me it is a natural turn of events, but it is certainly troubling.

One way to beat the problem of lost memories is to write down your impressions of the just passing year. In this case, we are talking about 2006, but it works for any year. During the holidays, there is often a lot of dead time when you can take some notes while the kids are playing Death Ray Beast 9 ? Armageddon or whatever.

I try to sit down and write out all the significant things that happened to me during the year. The journal is just for me, so good and bad things are included to give a full perspective. I have been doing this for a few years. It is interesting to go back and read the 2006 entries. Memories flood back of the good times. With the bad things, it is interesting to realize that things that seemed so serious at the time, turned out not to be nearly as disastrous as I imagined.

I highly recommend that you consider preserving your experiences each year in a journal. You can do it on your computer, but I personally never can remember where I saved anything and occasionally lose my hard drive to viruses and odd little Microsoft errors. Because of this, I use a blank journal to hold all the years. It creates a nice little autobiography of life and makes for good reading. Obviously, you can use whatever you like, but I strongly recommend you gift it a try. It will beat any Stephen King book when it is time to do a bit of reading.