The reason for starting this journal for myself is very simple – I have a medical condition (epilepsy) which affects my ability to remember and retain memories. Not only that, I have this innate ability to remember the not-so-good memories.
This doesn’t help considering the medications I’m on to help my condition have depressing side-effects, and the last few years have been tough to say the least, with the last few months being so painful that I can’t put into words just yet.
I am therefore hoping that writing the good memories OR even not-so-good memories and lessons learnt down will help me in some way, that’s my aim for thememorystory.com .
The problem is that I don’t really know where to start. Since registering the blog, I’ve been inundated with thoughts and memories.
A decade ago, photography was a tool I used to preserve memories, and I was alright at it, but it wasn’t something that I pursued professionally, or took time to hone my skills as my health deteriorated.
It’s something that I still love though, and I enjoy taking pictures of food, nature, and the few weddings I attend. I used to enjoy taking photographs, especially portraits, of people (especially in the line of work that I’m in), but this was when my energy levels were higher and I could physically cope with carrying a camera around, arranging settings and people, and so on and so forth. It was even a photo blog that I had that landed me the best job that I ever had.
As I wrote the paragraph above, I hope that I’m able to re-learn my love for photography again.
I recently went on holiday with family and unfortunately I couldn’t take my SLR with me, however I got snap happy with my trusty phone. My BIL’s mum asked me out of the blue what I do with all those pictures.
In a moment of social anxiety (and because there was a language barrier), I replied “Oh they’re just for Instagram”. Which they were partly. But mostly they’re simply to preserve beautiful memories and moments which I know I’ll forget, and I’d like to be able to remember happier times when I’m down in the dumps.
I come from a family that doesn’t talk about their problems, they have a tendency to brush issues under the rug even when you’re screaming about it in front of their face ( I have a feeling there will be more about this in another post). My boyfriend is also not really in the frame-of-mind to deal with my issues, and so this blog is sort of therapy for me. I doubt they’ll ever come across it, or even if they do, I doubt they’ll read it!
So expect lots of posts that don’t quite make sense, because that’s the state of my mind, but this is a place to preserve me memories, a.k.a my story, as inconsequential as it may be.
Rx