I love being right in the middle of a memorable moment when a certain kind of happiness overcomes me, and I can’t help but think, “I will never forget this.” Those moments are deemed “memorable” for whatever reason, and can stay in our hearts forever. As much as we wish they can be replayed over and over, they can’t be; unless you have a time machine in the form of a flying DeLorean, and your name is Doctor Emmett Brown. (haha)

So what do you do with those memories? Do you look at the pictures through your phone or computer, only to get a visual memory? Do you let them sit in the back of your mind until time wears it down to only fuzzy recollections? The only thing worse than not remembering the memories is not recording them.

“You will have significant experiences. I hope that you will write them down and keep record of them, that you will read them from time to time and refresh your memory of those meaningful and significant things. Some may be funny. Some may be significant only to you. Some of them may be sacred and quietly beautiful. Some may build one upon another until they represent a lifetime of special experiences.” - Gordon B. Hinckley

I love this quote and feel motivation from it to be better at journaling. I struggle a lot with this now that I’m married, because instead of venting and recording things down in my journal, I have replaced that with a best friend to tell anything to. We talk about pretty much everything, so it feels like I’m doubling up on it. But the sad truth is that eventually, we won’t be able to remember all of the details to a memory. I’ve been finding the importance in writing these things down.

A few couples have told me that they wished they had written more about their first years together or took more of an effort to create a photo album with details on those special memories. I don’t want to have similar regrets with my marriage, so we started a marriage journal this summer! It’s a fun collaboration of many things: words, pictures, jokes, and love notes. It includes our thoughts, feelings, experiences, and milestones. We adhere pictures in there, and write captions, or even write a full on journal entry about it. The best part is that it’s just for us, and not for anyone else to see, so we make it whatever we want it to be.

We are excited to add more to our married journal, with all of the experiences that come our way! I’ve also been scrapbooking our pictures and writing those details down, which has provided me with a fun walk down memory lane.  Since we both struggle with writing in our personal journals more often, we have set goals to write a few sentences every few days, and it has worked so far. Maybe you’ll find our idea a fun one, and try it too. If you’d still like to journal more, but want to keep things separate, check out my post on 10 ways to journal. :)

2016 UPDATE:

Neither one of us has written in this cute married journal for at least a year! I guess life got busy! I forgot to keep it right by my bed, too after moving into our house. We have kept up on our personal journaling, however! We do more of the digital route now though, and save our journal entries on the cloud :)

There are funny things we have said to each other that I remember writing a note in my phone about. And some things I can remember still, so I’m actually going to take a day to go back and write some of those things in! Even if it didn’t happen at the time I write it in, it’s OK. At least we have the memory recorded SOMEWHERE and that’s the whole point of this post.

• all
• celebrate
• communication
• friendship
• funny