Live in the Moment

Scritch scratch scritch scratch. I leaned against my locker at school, writing down every detail from chemistry class into my thick fuschia notebook.

Max dropped his pencil at 11:27.

Alice forgot her chemistry notebook and missed out on the lab project.

Three people were absent today.

And on and on my list went. This notebook was almost full, so I put a note reminding myself to go out and buy another one after school. Across the hall, I noticed a girl drop her glasses and quickly wrote that down as well. Finally, I put my chemistry books into my lockers and headed to the lunchroom.

You may be wondering why I document everything that happens. It's because I'm afraid to forget everything. Writing every little thing down makes it feel like my memories are secured and I can always go back to them when I feel like something is slipping away. A lot of people look back on their lives and can't seem to remember the little things, so I write everything down to prevent that. I will obviously always remember big events in my life, but I want to have everything written down, no matter how small or insignificant it seems. If I were to ever lose my memory, I could just read my notebooks and everything would be the same. Sometimes, documenting everything that happens can take hours on end, but I feel a sense of accomplishment and tell myself it's worth it. You see, when I was little, I used to do everything so freely and never note things down. Now I wish I had so I could see every moment vividly again. I'm just too scared to forget and lose everything.

When I enter the lunchroom, I walk over to a little table in the corner where I usually sit and wait for my friend. In a couple minutes, she comes over with a tray from the hot lunch line.

"Hey, how was chem?" Olivia asks, taking a bite of the mashed potatoes.

"Good," I say as I jot down everything on the plate and what the people around me are wearing and discussing.

"Oh come on, are you writing down every single thing in that notebook again?" she says, sounding exasperated.

"Well, yeah, I do every day. And I told you, I want to remember everything," I reply, my head still down.

"But you need to learn to live in the moment and enjoy things, not just note them down. Charlotte, every time I ask you to come somewhere fun with me, you're always writing in that notebook and it feels like you aren't actually there."

"I would regret it later on if I didn't. I don't want to look back and forget something!" I say heatedly. We have this conversation every day. Every. Single. Day. It was getting kind of old. I kept trying to explain my thinking to Olivia, but she never seemed to understand. What's the point of enjoying something when you won't remember that moment of joy in a couple years?

"You will remember everything that's important though!" Olivia says. "It doesn't matter if you forget how many people were present in your high school classes, or every little activity you do."

I ignore her and keep writing.

That day after school, I ran up the stairs upon opening the door and enter my room. I flop onto my bed and make a list of everything that happened on the bus. When I was done, I heard my mom open the front door, so I ran down to greet her.

"Hi, Mom! How was work?" I asked.

"It was tiring, so I'm glad to be home!" she said, putting her work bag down. I quickly jotted down: tiring day at work for Mom.

"Do you want to help me organize some old pictures into albums?" she asked.

"Sure," I said since I had nothing better planned.

We went downstairs into the basement and my mom dragged out a box from the closet. Sitting down, she opened it up and pulled out some photographs of me when I was graduating middle school. That was a year after I'd started writing down life's details.

"Do you remember how the teachers threw water balloons at all the kids that day?" Mom asks laughing.

"Oh yeah! I remember writing that down!" I say. See, this is exactly why I catalog things into my notebook!

Mom's smile fades and she puts down the pictures. "Charlotte, you need to stop having your head in those notebooks all the time. You aren't really enjoying these events in life if you're just worried about getting them documented. You are given life to enjoy, not to watch."

"I know that," I say. "But isn't it more important to remember things for when you are old?"

Our conversation gets cut short when my dad pops his head in the door and says, "I'm going to start making dinner!"

"You should get started on homework," Mom says. "I'll call you downstairs when dinner is ready."

I go upstairs to my room and pull out my fuschia notebook to write down the afternoon's events, then started my homework.

Beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep! The fire alarm was going off and I could smell smoke.

"Charlotte! Come downstairs!" my dad yelled frantically. I sprinted down the stairs and found my parents standing at the bottom with the front door open.

"We need to go outside! There's a fire!" my mom said. The three of us ran out and I turned around to see a column of fire blast up from the back of the house. I gasped.

"How did this happen?" I asked, shaking.

"I had kept a dishcloth next to the stove while the pasta was boiling and it caught on fire when I went downstairs for some sauce!" my dad said. My mom had called 911 and was talking to the operator with tears in her eyes. I couldn't believe it. Our house was gone. The place I had lived in my whole life. Suddenly, I remember all my notebooks. They were still in the house! This was too much for me and I ran away from the scene of my burning home towards the town park with my parents calling after me.

As I sprinted through the streets, I thought about all those years of detail I had put into those books. All those memories were now lost on paper. When I got to the park, I leaned against a tree and sank down to the ground crying. Across the lawn, I saw a little girl and her parents playing with a puppy. They were all smiling and laughing. Watching this made all the memories of me writing in my notebooks come flooding back. Olivia and Mom were right. I had always sat in the background and watched life happen, but I never lived it. I was so afraid about losing precious memories, but I never actually enjoyed them or made them worth it. I counted the moments but I didn't make the moments count. I had lived in that home for my whole life, but in the past few years, I hadn't lived, I had only written about living. Losing the notebooks was a sign that I needed to start living in the moment and making every second memorable. Remembering every little detail isn't important if you still remember what brought you joy. You will never forget the things that make you happy. I got up from the grass and walked back to my house. I would start by helping my parents get through the situation with our house and throw away those notebooks even if they weren't burnt already.