As I grow closer and closer to my 50th birthday I am thinking about “What to do with the rest of my life?” I am becoming more contemplative, yet I am concerned that I am losing my memory.
My mom always claimed that she had a really good memory, it was just really short. Now I know exactly what she meant. I decided I better start writing down my daily activities because I can hardly remember what I ate yesterday let alone what I did last week, last month or last year!
I found an amazing daily diary called the Journal 10+. In this journal I can write down four or five lines of what I did each day. It doesn’t have to be a big commitment. The really cool part is when I write on that date for the next 10 years all I have to do is look up on the page to see what I was doing on that date the year before. Memory problem solved! Now not only can I tell you what I did yesterday, soon I will be able to easily recall every year from 2013 to 2023. If I wrote down my meals I could actually tell you what I ate yesterday and not miss a beat.
I have kept various diaries off and on for many, many years and they are so fun to read.
Here are a few things I know now that I didn’t know then….First of all, my mom is much smarter than I gave her credit for when I was 18…..she became brilliant about the time my daughter was born 19 years ago.
Second, you can’t fix a broken relationship. If he treats you poorly as a boyfriend he will only treat you worse when he’s your husband…. run.
Third, not everything is the end of the world! Give every crisis a few days for the dust to settle before you blow it all out of proportion…and when all else fails go to bed.
Everything, and I mean everything, looks better in the morning after a good night’s sleep.
My first diary was given to me when I was just entering seventh grade. It was small and pink with a little lock on it so my brother couldn’t read the most private intimate details of my 13-year-old life. I had strong thoughts about everything from school lunches to friends, boyfriends and probably my friends’ boyfriends! It never occurred to me that my thoughts should be filtered in my writing.
I was greatly influenced by reading The Diary of Anne Frank. She wrote not only what was happening to her and to her family but her secret thoughts as well. Who would have imagined that millions of people would eventually read those pages? I have even traveled to Amsterdam to see the tiny little space where she hid. I believe her diary changed the world by documenting the past. I think we should all keep a diary; at the very least we will know what we ate yesterday.
How wonderful it is that
nobody need wait a single
moment before starting to
improve the world.
Anne Frank
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of homestyle recipes.
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