I'm not superstitious, so I'm not going to tell everyone to be careful or watch out for mirrors and ladders and black cats (I have a black cat and he happens to be very sweet!) But I will tell you to make sure that you make this a memorable day. Go do something crazy or unexpected. Meet a stranger, or try something new! Go out of your way to make sure that today is not a day that fades into the blurry background of your life.
I have a horrible memory- anyone that knows me well at all can testify to that. And it makes me sad every time I think of all the things that I can't remember! From childhood moments to time spent with John- little things that just slip away before I realize I should have taken the time to savor the moment and etch it into my memory.
Unfortunately I think that's the norm. Anyone who can vividly recall a majority of their days has been blessed in a very rare way. But we can try to make moments last. Donald Miller mentions this in his blog today, Creating Memorable Scenes. He mentions it in A Million Miles
also, when he talks about knowing someone who wrote down everything they could remember. Can you imagine how many pages you would fill if you wrote down every thing you could remember? If at the end of the day you sat down and wrote out a detailed description of your day? It might seem worthless at the time, but how much of that is stuff that would be gone within a day? A week? A year? To be able to pick up a journal or click to a blog entry from 5 or 15 or 50 years ago and read exactly what you did on that day- that just seems so precious to me. Sure, it will be filled with a lot of "Had another bowl of cereal this morning," but imagine the precious moments you could save that would be lost otherwise? Moments you were sure you would always remember but have since forgotten? Or even moments that seemed unimportant at the time, that you have since come to cherish? Your last interaction with a lost loved one? Your first day as a wife? A mother? A grandmother?
I want to challenge anyone out there to try something. Sit down tonight and write down everything you can remember from these past 7 days. What you ate, what you wore, who you spoke with, what you watched before bed. Then for 7 days, starting tomorrow, sit down at the end of each day and write what you remember just from that day. Then next Friday, on the 20th, I want you to compare everything you have written down from that week to everything you were able to recall today from this past week.
Then come back and tell me about it!
I know this is a tough challenge. I'm not sure I'll be able to stick to it myself. It means setting aside time to do this every day. But I'm pretty sure it will be worth it. Will I end up sticking to this for the rest of my life? I can guarantee I won't. But the exercise will most definitely make me more aware of what I'm doing, what I'm remembering, and most importantly, what I'm doing to make sure the moments I'm creating along the way are memorable.
