Snapshot.

The other day, my friend Lauren and I decided to go on an adventure.

Here in San Diego there are many places to explore.

From people watching, to pretending we were tourist, the day was filled with memories.

On the way to picking her up, I was thinking about memories.

My brain knows that I have lived many days….but I couldn’t tell you what happened every day of my life.

I could maybe tell you a handful of days I remember from my 4 years in high school.

It was the days that sparked a certain emotion in me that let my heart tell my brain to remember that day.

I tried my best to share with Lauren my thoughts about this, and it just didn’t make a ton of sense until we moved to our to our next destination (which I will come back to).

The great part about the day was we were both extremely sore from our 9.1 mile run the day before, so we had to both walk as slow as grandmas.

We had no rush, no real purpose in our day.

From the boy who chased the pigeons, to the barista who remembered our names as we walked out of Starbucks, to laughing until tears ran down our faces….memories.

I took Lauren to one of my favorite spots.

As we inched our way (slowly) up the grassy knoll, we laid our blankets down and watched the planes fly over us.

The planes were so close that it felt like you could reach your hand out and touch the belly of the plane.

I pulled out a book while Lauren wrote in her journal.

I chuckled out loud when I read the first line of the book.

“The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember half of it.”

He went into talking about a guy he knew that decided to write down everything he remembers.

“He’s the only guy I know who remembers his life. He said he captures memories, because if he forgets them, it’s as though they didn’t happen; it’s as though he hadn’t lived the parts he doesn’t remember.”

This was exactly what I was thinking earlier but put more eloquently by Donald Miller in his new book, ” A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”

It’s crazy to me that we can live something and not remember it years later.

I remember this episode of The Office when Jim and Pam took mental pictures during moments they wanted to remember.

For the past couple of months I have been filing mental pictures away more than I ever have.

It’s as if I got a new lens. Let’s just call this lens ‘sentimental’.

Everything around me…. from my friends, to the random people I see/ meet, I try to remember.

This new lens I think comes from knowing I will be leaving this place soon.

And so, with everyday like this one, I want to take with me.

A snapshot full of memories.

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