Writing History

I've been thinking recently about keeping records. We have two small file boxes that Bryan and I periodically sit in front of to file the stacks of papers that have accumulated on our counter tops. We have an even smaller fireproof safe that holds important documents and a CD of our wedding pictures. Last year Bryan took it upon himself to organize and electronically file our thousands of pictures. I'm grateful for his project because it's made posting past pictures on here easier than it would have been if I had to sift through those pictures myself. Instead of baby books I write the boys significant milestones on our calendar. And then I make sure that we don't throw those calendars away. I can go back and look at when Cooper first ate green beans or when Peter took his first steps.

Specifically, I've thought about this blog as a place to keep a record. I've kept journals since I was in Primary, but none of them with any regularity. There was a span in my early teenage years when I wrote everyday, but they were short laundry lists of my day's activities. My hand would get tired before I got around to writing my thoughts or feelings with any depth. The exceptions are when Bryan and I got engaged and when the boys were born, but even those entries were dated after the fact, written when I had time to pull out my journal and sit and write uninterrupted.

Apparently I type much faster than I write. On this blog I let more of those thoughts that have been drifting through my head find a home. I write more of my feelings on motherhood. I doubt that I would remember to write all the funny or clever things that Peter says in my journal, yet they often end up here. Even if no one else reads what I write, it is helpful for me to be able to go back and look at where I've been and how far I've progressed as a mother, a wife, a friend, and a person. And it's gratifying to think that perhaps someday when the boys have children of their own they will be able to read about their childhood escapades and realize that if we could raise them without going completely insane, maybe they can do the same with their own kids.