Social Media – The New Scrapbooking

It was 1999 and I was a newlywed who was moving to Pennsylvania with her consultant husband. Since the move was fairly sudden, I didn’t have a job yet. But always busy, I had to find something to do because, I’ve never been one to sit around. Boredom is awful and adventures are always calling.

We were in an apartment waiting for a permanent home and that’s when I must have seen a commercial or news show about scrapbooking. I thought that’s great and I can do it.

So I rushed out to buy all the supplies I needed and diligently set out to make a memory book of my life with my husband, knowing it would live through the ages and be a treasured testament to our love for one another. It turned out to be more labor intensive than I’d thought, but it was somehow therapeutic.

Soon after starting, I found my position as an Assistant Buyer for QVC and quickly went to work, as the scrapbook laid around unfinished. But I knew I would get back to it. Those precious pieces of history had to be displayed for the world to see in picture/story form.

A year later, my daughter came along and as much as I wanted to stay on part time, there just wasn’t a position, so I became a stay-at-home mom. Happy with my new life and thinking I would have all the time in the world to make a memory book of by daughter, I eventually pulled out my fancy papers, scissors, markers, and glues and set to work.

Both of those albums still sit on the bookshelf in our family office. They look great, but after several moves and three more kids I have no delusions. I will never make any more albums. I’m so far behind that I don’t even have the desire at this point to try.

I was scrolling through my Facebook page one day and realized I enjoyed looking at the memories of the places we’d been as a family, people we’d seen and all the comments I made at the time about how I felt and what we were doing.

That’s when I decided social media was my new memory book. Not only Facebook, but now I have Instagram too. And while I do use these accounts for interactions with family, friends, and readers, they serve to remind me of everything good in my life.

I love looking back at the video’s and pictures of Jinx, the cat we lost last year, and I know that those memories will never be lost. What’s even better is that I have them at my fingertips and can show anyone at any time.

I have photos from my kids that pop up on my feed randomly and remind me of how fast they grow and how I need to enjoy the time I have with them before they are out on their own. I have memories of special things I’ve done with my husband and with my friends, and some of the wonderful people I’ve been lucky enough to meet in the writing industry.

What’s more, I love seeing everyone else’s lives, knowing that even if I can’t see or talk to people daily, I can still see a small snippet of how they are doing and what’s important to them.