I wish I had kept a journal.

Since I started working on my memoir, I have realized how beneficial it would have been to have jotted down some words in a diary throughout my life. Plus, if I’m ever murdered, a diary might help solve my case. At least it does on Dateline.

I have a vague memory of having a diary at one time in my childhood, but I have no idea what happened to it. I think it was pink, with a tiny lock on the cover and a tiny key. I may or may not have written in it. How do other people keep track of things like diaries?

They probably don’t have a brother who purged all their memorabilia while cleaning out their mom’s house. Like the awesome pencil drawing of Steve Martin that I did in high school. He was wearing a white hat with a black band next to the words “A Wild and Crazy Guy” in a curly font I made up. Also missing is the plaster relief sculpture I did as a freshman in college, which the sculpture professor said was one of "the most sophisticated solutions" to the assignment he had ever seen. At least that’s what I remember.

It’s all gone. And according to Steve, the purging brother, “all junk.” But that’s okay. They’re still masterpieces in my memory. 

Back to the journal I never kept    

There are a few things I did that might count as documenting memories as an adult. I wrote a yearly newsletter to insert in our Christmas card, which gave a brief update of what the prior year had included for our family. Some people call those “brag letters,” but in mine I just laid it all out there. The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

As a kid, teen, and young adult, though, I just didn’t make time to write anything down. And I am really regretting it. Mostly because I can't prove my siblings wrong. If one of my siblings claimed she didn’t go on a trip with us, for example. I could whip out my diary, take out that tiny little key and unlock it, turn to the page I had documented it on, and show her she did, too. “Yuh, huh!”

Admittedly, most of the memories we don’t agree on are not all that important. Like who bought the keg for the keg party in 1978, or who was on which year’s BB Gun teams, or if they went on the trip, or where the pig pen was located in our yard. Nothing that would change our legacy or anybody’s inheritance. Mostly because there is no legacy and nothing to inherit.

As County Assessor, Dad saw many families torn apart by fights over possessions left behind after someone passed away. If there was a safe-deposit box, Dad had to be present and assess the contents for inheritance tax. And that’s when the squabbling would start. He said it got really ugly at times, and he was disgusted by it. 

Throughout our lives, he warned us not to do that. “When I'm gone, don’t you kids fight over my valuables!” Then he made damn sure we wouldn’t by leaving no valuables. It was a solid backup plan.  

Everyone seems to remember things differently. In some cases, it’s just selective memory, and in some cases, it’s just batshit craziness. My sister Lynn is the batshit craziest of us all. Her memory gaps are like the Grand Canyon. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she dropped acid in her youth. But without a diary, I can’t prove that she didn’t.

Lynn’s superpower is remembering things nobody else does. It could be because these things never actually happened, but who am I to judge?

She sometimes transposes other people’s memories into her own. I’ve read this is a common thing. So common it has a name: borrowed memory or sometimes transferred memory. It happens when you repeatedly hear or share someone else's story, and your brain confuses the details, making you believe it happened to you. In Lynn’s case, we all call it her Lynnmory. Which is funnier if you know her middle name is Marie.

Bless her heart. *

* It’s commonly known that if you make fun of someone, you need to follow it with “Bless their heart,” and that makes it not so mean. For the record, I offered to change her name to Linda in this blog, and she assured me she could take it. She’s such a good sport!

Words of wisdom: When in France, keep a journal

In 1979, when I was a senior in high school, I traveled to France with fellow students from my French and Art classes. It was a trip we had planned for a couple of years, so the anticipation was off the charts.

My mom had cosigned on a loan for me to pay for the trip. I was working at a grocery store, and I paid the entire amount back myself. My recollection is that it was in the neighborhood of $1,500, but that could be wrong since I didn’t, you know, keep a journal. Drat!

Our French teacher, Ms. Graesch, who was the best French teacher ever, helped us in so many ways as we prepared for our journey. She not only taught us the language, but also the culture. We learned about French Impressionists, the castles and other sites we would be touring, what a kiosk is, and how to ride the Metro. We prepared French food and compiled our own recipe book. And most importantly, she advised us to keep a journal on our trip.  

“A journal?” I scoffed. “Like I could EVER forget this trip?” I didn’t want to waste time writing when it was legal for me to drink wine! The details would be permanently implanted in my young brain, I assured myself. And they were. They just didn’t get replanted in my older brain.

Luckily, I did take a camera. It was the best Kodak Instamatic I could afford, and even though the pictures are grainy, they are still clearer than my memories. That summer, I put those grainy pictures in a photo album and wrote a few captions under some of them. That was the extent of my journaling. I just knew I would remember that trip for years to come. And after all these years, the album is yellowed and deteriorating. Not unlike my memories of the trip.

When I took my sons to France in 2013 and posted on Facebook that we were going to Normandy, my friend Lisa, who also went on that high school trip, commented, “Oh, I’ll never forget being there with you in 1979!”

Uh. Okay. I guess we were there. Lisa must have kept a journal.

These days, I guess social media has replaced journaling. And it’s very detailed journaling for some of my friends who seem to post every single event and every thought that comes to their mind.

I’m not judging. I put posts on Facebook - a bit more when it was new. Important stuff like when I made a quiche for dinner, or had a meeting to go to, or other significant events. These days I have cut way back; I still document big moments (like quiche) and share things like this blog.  

Facebook memories will pop up, reminding me of the things I've posted. Whether they are good memories or not, they are MY memories, and Lynn can’t say they are hers. She’s never made a quiche in her life.

Bless her heart.