I start a ten-year diary every other year or so, but I never seem to finish them. Within a year, I’ll abandon keeping a regular journal or planner, and I’m left with reams of empty pages.
It always makes me feel like I’m spinning my wheels — as if I’ve stopped, as if time is moving on without me, even though I know I’m also moving forward.
I suppose that I can always mentally look back over any given period of ten years — from 2024 back to 2014, say, and even further back — and reminisce over all the things that I hadn’t guessed would already be a thing of the past.
The reminiscing grounds me.
And I can remember so many “missing” things. Daily newspapers on nearly every sidewalk in town. Magazines that seemed to hold the scent of Clinque’s Happy perfume. Those really tasty fruit-flavored Altoids. Those really cool Icebreakers that looked like tiny tapioca bubbles.
The little things will always be the things I miss the most.