2021MOC2-whyIscrap

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https://the-lilypad.com/store/Exhale-Papers.html
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https://the-lilypad.com/store/Project-Mouse-Main-Street-Artsy.html

627 words

I wish I could remember being that 8 year old who started writing in an ugly little diary -- green cover with orange page edges -- in the middle of 1980. I only vaguely recall sometimes writing the short boring entries (”April 28, 1980 I’m glad school started” “July 2, 1980 I went to the dentist”) by the light of the night light in my bedroom, presumably after I was supposed to have gone to sleep. I guess my Mom encouraged the journal-writing to continue by giving me another little pink diary for my tenth birthday. My sister did too, by encouraging me to name my diary, and address it by name, though that didn’t last for more than a few pages. I remember enjoying writing for school too. I still have an essay I wrote in fourth grade titled “What I Did On Spring Break.” The teacher had promised to read them aloud to the class anonymously but I wrote on the top of mine, “Read my name please!” I guess I was proud of it. But it wasn’t until I was about 11 that I started collecting memorabilia and taping or stapling it into a scrapbook. I don’t remember being that 11 year old either. I just know I’ve been compelled to record my life longer than I can remember. To remember. That is perhaps the reason. I’m sure it wasn’t conscious when I was 8 or even 11, but by the time I reached my teens, I learned how rewarding it is to reread my old journals and look through my scrapbooks and reminisce and ponder. Not only to remember just for pure enjoyment, but to see how far I’ve come. To see that things always change. To see what I’ve learned. To evaluate what happened and think about what I like, what I don’t like, what I might do differently. In high school I was filling fat spiral notebooks in 3 months. And I made my own scrapbooks with three ring binders I’d fill with colored paper onto which I’d glue, tape, or staple tickets, programs, magazine or newspaper clippings (including some ads that amused me and the funny little tidbits in Readers Digest), invitations, brochures, anything flat that represented a fun time I’d had. When we acquired the capability of printing at home, I made my own calendars with Broderbund’s Print Shop and at the end of each month I’d hole punch them and add them to my scrapbook. So I had already been journaling and scrapping for nearly two decades before Michael’s added a scrapbook aisle and scrapbook stores started appearing. But my first child arrived in 2001 and a few years after that I discovered digital scrapbooking, a much tidier option that is so much better in a house with little children. The digital age also made it incredibily easy to record my life, and the lives of my rapidly growing children. It is one of the most awesome things ever that I have not only mementos of my kids’ childhoods, but thousands of images and VIDEO of them. I’ve been more prolific about recording life than ever in the last 5 years. I expect I already have more memories saved digitally than I could possibly have saved in my brain, even if I had a good memory, which I don’t. That’s the biggest reason why I scrap now: I just have a bad memory. It’s wonderful that I can cause memories to become more concrete by journaling, scrapping, and recording audio or video. Because I believe life is for enjoying, and I want to remember as much of it as possible. During times when I’m not making new memories, I can marvel at past adventures and this awesome life.