Documentation: To Rewrite History or Not?

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my discovery of a family vacation scrapbook from 1986 - and my heavily misspelled journal entries. I wrote mostly about the weather and the specific times we entered states or left our hotel rooms, so it may not land in history as my finest work, but it does land as my earliest work.

Scrapbooking has actually come in quite handy for me this week. Not the act of constructing the books, but the benefit of having the books.

* A friend of mine asked my thoughts on putting together a baby book, and since I've made one for someone else before, I had all kinds of ideas to share!

* Another friend is planning her daughter's graduation open house and wants to have ice cream sundaes. She remembered that we had those for our wedding reception, so I looked up the details in the scrapbook and let her know the specifics.

* I needed a specific date from something that happened back in 2000...and sure enough! The scrapbook had the date!

Three of the many dozens of reasons I love our books and the memories they hold for us.

But scrapbooks bring up an interesting question that really becomes a matter of opinion: should you (or do you) "rewrite history" by taking or leaving things out of books or journals?

What do you think?

One of my friends redid a photo album once to remove photos of a relationship that had ended. She said she didn't want anything to remind her of that season of her life, including a record of the dates they'd been on together.

After my breakup with Isaac, I stared at the printed pictures (clearly a while ago) from our last dates and weighed whether or not I would include them in my album. He had so deeply hurt me that I wasn't sure I could even bring myself to document the happiness I'd felt on those last adventures. In the end, I decided that even though it hurt, our relationship had been part of my life story, and it certainly forever marked the woman I became. I couldn't ignore it just because it had ended. So I included the pictures and the story of our relationship's end.

For me, scrapbooking is not only a fun way to look back on memories, but it's another form of journaling. Some pages are overwhelming to create, because they bring up deep emotions. (I've been known to put book projects on hold because I have to wait for my heart to be ready.)

I choose to make our books in a way that captures all of life. Most of our days really are fun to remember. But every now and then, there's a difficult (or ridiculous) story.

* Like the last night we cared for Ryan's mom before she died.

* Like the day I submitted my resignation to WBCL.

* Like the time we had to have our entire yard dug up to replace every stitch of plumbing from our house to the street.

* Like the time I accidentally dyed my hair neon orange a week before a class reunion.

Certainly those stories don't hold equal comparison to one another, but they all represent days that might not be our finest or our favorite. But they represent our story in full. They represent things I don't want us to forget as time passes and memories fade. For as much as I want to erase some of those things, I also want to remember how they made me stronger or braver or more grateful or more aware of my own crazy stories.

So I write the stories, even if it takes me a while to be able to do it. That's my choice. It's okay if it doesn't match yours. But what would your choice be? (You're allowed to answer even if you're not a scrapbooker...)