November and memories

Happy November! Just possibly my favorite month, in one of my favorite seasons. I love November for birthdays and Thanksgiving, seasonal food and family. And, for the third year in a row, I'm signing up for NaBloPoMo--a month of posting every day. Clint laughed at me when I said I had to blog tonight because it is November. I should be better about blogging throughout the year, instead of almost doubling my postings for the year in one month--but every year, I tell myself I do NaBloPoMo to get in the habit so that I actually do better in the comming year.

The latest bee in my bonet is all about cleaning and organizing. I'm going slowly, partly because I am tring to be brutally honest with myself. If it isn't something I've used in the last year, even if it is a project I fully intend on doing, I'm putting it in a pile, and if I can't rescue it soon, it's gone.

One of the boxes I worked on recently had various notes and papers from the end of high school and my college days. I found the photographs and wedding invitations for friends and roommates, and letters from my brother while he was on a mission. I also found the first note Clint ever left for me after our first date. I found the program from the play we went to on our second date after I found his note and was brave enough to call him back. I found old talks and notes from lessons I taught in Relief Society, some over six years old. I managed to avoid most of my two traps in going through the box--keeping too much for sentamental reasons and getting bogged down in the sorting process by all of my re-discoveries.

But I was surprised in my sorting about how much I had forgotten about my own life, especially in terms of how I felt or what I was thinking. Many of these objects jogged those memories, and made themselves valuable--and keepable--for those reasons. Thinking about stuff and memories made me wish I had kept better record of those thoughts and feelings at the time, so that the objects didn't matter as much. And when it all boils down, that is the reason I want to keep writing. It is so easy to get busy living life in the moment that it is easy to forget how that moment is different from the ones that have come before. Blogging isn't the perfect answer to how to keep writing--it too public for many personal thoughts, and too impersonal for others. Ideally, I would write for myself and keep my records that way. On the other hand, it is easy for me to get carried away by writing, and to leave good things left undone so I can write. That is not the answer either. For now, blogging for a small community of friends and family is the best I have, and it at least is one more way to keep memories.