By, LEXI MUELLER
How do you archive your life? When I ran upon this question, I was immediately intrigued. I’ve always been a creative person, with a longing to make an identity for myself through the work I do. But the idea of archiving my own life is not something I can say I’ve thought much about before. Despite this, it made for a really interesting question that I forced myself to further dig into as I thought about all of the ways I have worked to archive my life in the past. For the purpose of this article, I’ve decided to focus on how I have best archived my own memories in ways for me to access later in life, when I may need the help to remember a thing or two. I believe memories to be the most important things that people possess, and I hope to never forget any of the ones I have made for myself, as I have attempted to archive these things around me.
For as long as I’ve had a smartphone, I’ve been the photographer of my friend group. No matter what we are doing, whether it’s a small walk around Gray’s Lake or just us playing Sushi Go in our dorm room, I’ve always wanted to document the moment with a picture or video. It has always seemed so important to have our memories captured in a picture or video, so we could always look back at them and remember what a good time we had.
All of my friends have always thought of me as crazy, with the 7,345 images I have stored on my iPhone and over 10,000+ more I have stored in my Google Drive. But archiving my life has always seemed like something important to me. As a kid, my favorite thing to do was look back at old family photos and be reminded of activities I had forgotten or funny moments I could not remember. It always leads to a smile or a “Do you remember when…?” that brings back nostalgia of the good old days.
Coming to college, I realized I could no longer rely on my parents to force us all to take a picture. I had to document these memories for myself if I hoped to remember my college time well. I’ve since become someone who loves to make memories and will go to great lengths to document them as a way to preserve them. I hope to eventually look back at a positive college experience and remember it through the pictures, videos and writings I have used to document my life.
We have been so blessed to have been born in a digital world. With new age technology, we can keep track of the beautiful memories that we make with our family and friends so we are able to keep hold of it forever. I encourage all of you who may not see the importance in pictures to stop for a moment and think of yourself in 50 years. What is it you wish to remember about your time in college? Don’t you hope to remember the time you fit 79 gumballs in your mouth by looking at a bathroom selfie you took with a friend in the mirror? Or a fuzzy image of the time your roommates all ganged up at you and threw snowballs straight at you and your camera? We are incredibly lucky to have all these memories stored for us and I like to make it my responsibility to help in that process.
It is your own responsibility to document the memories you have made for yourself. It’s easy to take the time to archive your own life, through so many things like writing, art, photos, videos, and journals. College may be the best time of your life and you don’t want to forget about it because you were too lazy to take a snapshot during a fun time. I encourage all to work to make their own memories and document them well so you can look back in 50 years and be happy with the life you’ve made.
GRAPHICS BY HANNAH COHEN
