Why I Scrapbook

I know, I know...you are OVER the scrapbooking thing I have going on this week. I get it. But it's my blog, and this is what's on my mind this week...

I get some flack for being a "scrapbooker." Good-natured flack, but flack, nonetheless. I know before I started scrapbooking, I thought that the people who did it were older women who wore sweaters with images of horses or cats stitched into them, and they sat around with their like-minded friends and they all scrapbooked photos of their cats.

And then I started meeting people who were self-proclaimed scrapbookers, and they were closer to my age and pretty "with it," and my image of scrapbookers started to change.

Now the cool/hip factor really has nothing to do with why I scrapbook, but it did change my perception of scrapbooking and the people who do it. (For the record, some scrapbookers are TOTALLY what I originally pictured...but they are a minority, I would say.)

So back to why I scrapbook...

When Amelia was about seven months old, she was crawling around in our then guest-room-converted-to-a-playroom. There was this thing she would always do...she would make a beeline across the carpeted room to the threshold that led to the hardwood floor of the hallway. Once she reached the hardwood floor, she would turn around, sit down, and laugh, like "Ha ha! I escaped! Try to catch me now!" and she would crawl on.

I remember watching her and thinking, "I never ever want to forget that."

But I realized that if I didn't write it down and record it in some way, I would forget. And then I realized that her life was going to be series of things I wouldn't want to forget, and that if I didn't write them down, I wouldn't remember them.

And while Amelia started out as the motivation for my scrapbooks, over time, scrapbooking has become more about "our" story as a family. I know that many people -- like me -- began scrapbooking when they had kids, but man...what I wouldn't give for an album that chronicled the first few years of our marriage, just to see how far we have come from those days. A Project Life album from 1999? THAT would be a treasure, my friends. :-) The trips, the friends, the routines, the clothes, our tiny 3rd-floor apartment...sure, I have photos and souvenirs and such, but I'd love to have it "recorded," you know?

This past weekend, Heidi Swapp made this remark in her keynote speech, and it has really stuck with me:

"If no one remembers it, it is like it never happened."

That one sentence completely embodies why I now record the details of our lives. True, we can't record EVERYTHING. Nor do we want to remember everything. But the little moments that make up the story of our lives, I want to remember a lot of it.