On the first page of his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned while Editing My Life, Donald Miller writes,
The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember half of it. You don’t even remember half of half of it. Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth. I have this friend Bob who writes down everything he remembers. If he remembers dropping an ice cream cone on his lap when he was seven, he’ll write it down. The last time I talked to Bob, he had written more than five hundred pages of memories. He’s the only guy I know who remembers his life. He said he captures memories, because if he forgets them, it’s as though they didn’t happen; it’s as though he hadn’t lived the parts he doesn’t remember.
I thought about that when he said it, and I tried to remember something. I remembered getting a merit badge in Cub Scouts when I was seven, that’s all I could remember. I got it for helping a neighbor cut down a tree. I’ll tell that to God when he asks what I did with my life. I’ll tell him I cut down a tree and got a badge for it. He’ll most likely want to see the merit badge, but I lost it years ago, so when I’m done with my story, God will probably sit there looking at me, wondering what to talk about next. God and Bob will probably talk for days.
Now that I’m a parent and I am witnessing the world through a different set of physical, emotional, spiritual and social lenses, I have this desire to record much more of my life. Since meeting Ryan, birthing Sydney and rebirthing myself, my life matters more to me. In both the living and the remembering. So, I took a lesson from the girls over at 3191, my friend Bridgette at All Things Kasubick, Mrs. Armstrong and the inspirational Karen Walrond. My Memory Project is a collection of photos capturing small and significant moments from each day–little life infusions, if you will. Every Monday I plan to post the previous week’s photos and type up a few notes explaining each photo’s significance.
Here’s hoping, someday, when it’s my turn, God and I have plenty to talk about.
