Quick, make a list of all the times you remembered you’d forgotten something last week.  How long is your list?  I’m embarrassed to tell you how long my list is.  But, and this is a BIG but, the experts say that if you can remember that you have forgotten something, then you are doing okay.

I don’t know about you but I am really glad to hear that.  Mind you, I have been having difficulty remembering things since I was much younger.  It seems as though most of my errands were handled in groups of two: like two trips to the grocery store, two trips downstairs to the basement to retrieve what I needed or two trips to the cleaners.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I scratched my head and said, “I feel like I’m forgetting something.”  Know what I mean?

It really strikes me as funny that we do scratch our heads when we are trying to remember something.  Does that come from years of watching others, or maybe the cartoons on TV?  Or does it have something to do with an attempt to stir up our gray matter in search of bringing what we’re looking for up to the surface?  And where do memories reside anyway?  Am I scratching the right place? 

According to a study done at the University of California, where a memory is stored depends on how old the memory is.  A new memory goes to the hippocampus and then is transferred to the frontal cortex.  Great!  Now I have something else to remember. How old is this memory and where is my hippocampus anyway?There is a strongly held belief that our memories get lost because of all the other stuff that our brain is holding on to.  Because most people today don’t engage in lengthy letters home, make “To Do” lists, or otherwise empty trivia from our minds, all our brain cells get occupied.  And like our computers when all the memory is full of data, there is no working memory left.  Just like we need to purge our computers, so should we purge our minds.  In fact, did you know there is a company in Texas that sells Brain Floss to help us do just that?  Who knew?

Studies have shown that the act of writing down your thoughts keeps your mind sharper and clearer.  That’s one of the reasons why journaling is so popular.  Those who keep journals don’t have the same stresses regarding memories. They can rest assured that they are safely stored and can easily be retrieved.  A simple reread brings it all back at a moment’s notice.  It’s no longer a matter of working to remember but rather a recalling that is automatically done by the brain.  No scratching of the head needed here.

A good friend of mine turned 50 and was feeling rather dismayed…that’s actually quite the understatement.  In an effort to get her to see a brighter side and to see this as an opportunity to celebrate, I suggested that she address the next 50 years as an adventure and to chronicle it.  We got to talking it over, brainstorming some ideas on what this would look like and she settled on a mix between a scrapbook and a journal.  Lots of writing entries like short stories, one-liners, favourite quotes, some well-crafted and not so well-crafted poems and of course, photographs.  And there is it was, all neatly bound in one “book” easy to find.

If you were to visit my home, you would see that I, too, believe in recording my memories. However, nothing at all like my friend has.  I’ve kept things the kids have made, photographs of them all growing up, my favourite quotes and recipes from mom.  They are all here, and here, and here and there, and oh, yes, over there too.  Sadly to admit, there are even some rolls of undeveloped film.  (Remember when it was cheap to buy film but not to develop it?) 

And, of course, none of it is easy to find when looking for it which leads me to scratching my head and trying to remember where I’d last seen it.  

And if it was in the basement, you know that’ll take two trips.  Maybe, I should sit down and write a lengthy list of where my “stuff” is so I can just consult the list.  I could sort, categorize and alphabetize.  I could even take pictures of my stuff and make an insurance portfolio, just in case.  Wow!  Sounds like an adventure to me.  Now, where did I put that notepad?

Note to Self… Take a load off my brain.  Write down those things that can be stored somewhere other than my overloaded hippocampus and frontal cortex.  Go find that notepad!