memory doesn't last forever

If you asked me how my day went today, I'd roll my eyes and say, "It's Sunday" without a second thought. (Seriously though, Sunday's in retail = THE WORST.) I opened at work this morning for the first time in a long time. Hustled through the busiest breakfast we've had almost all week, and on through a lunch rush that left me crabby and jonesing for a cigarette. I came home with every intention of taking a nap... and then started watching Parenthood and I haven't moved from the chair since. The semi-perfect Sunday. 

I keep telling myself to just pick one of the millions of little notebooks I pick up here and there and start writing things down. Pen to paper, hand cramps and all. Just sit down and write. The last time I actually sat down and wrote for me was the day I went to the park and drank my iced coffee and tried once again to process that my dad had cancer. That I could lose him. That damn it, this wasn't supposed to be happening now because my dad was supposed to walk me down the aisle and give me away at my wedding. 

Memories and photographs are all I have left of my dad, and every day I wish there was something more I could do to make his memory count. Eventually no one will remember the people in all the photos I have of him. Watching my grandma succumb to Alzheimer's taught me that memories don't last forever either. Unless they get written down, they threaten to become lost forever and never come back. How many more times in your life are you going to remember your fifth birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese? How many more times will you look back on weekend mornings, eating cereal and watching ABC's One Saturday Morning cartoons with your dad? 

I have an intense need to document everything. It's why I took up photography. It's why I blog. It's why I'm on so many social media platforms. I never want to forget how it feels to be 24. I'm thankful that I have so many outlets that I can go back and read my every day thoughts from when I was a teenager and into my early twenties. I'm terrified of forgetting. 

I want to be a storyteller. I want to be the memory keeper of my family. I want to have something to pass down to my kids and grandkids so that they can have a sense of who I was after I am gone. 

So here I am, writing for the sake of writing things down. For the sake of remembering. And it feels really really good.