On the Notes App

I love looking at my notes app. Well, when I put it like that it seems like I look at it far more than I actually do. But I really like the idea that one day I’ll be able to look back and see this patchwork of things I needed to remind myself. From a cursory glance, there’s notes from some game I was playing with my family and some family friends. There’s a message to my foreign language teacher, in said foreign language. There’s a teal green colored note with my notes from church on Sunday June 23. I’m not sure why I decided to include Sunday, given that church is always on a Sunday with the exception of Christmas.

I kind of like the idea that there’s all these things I’ve forgotten about that I can still go back and see. I have horrible memory in general, but getting these tiny glimpses into my life kind of refreshes my memory. For some of these, it’s like getting a new view on my past and for others it’s like looking in a mirror into a life that isn’t mine. My notes app is all about the small things in life. I don’t have any major life philosophies penned down in gorgeous prose, but I have the things that add color to daily life.

The main way I use my notes app is to remind myself of important things I’m likely to forget. Unfortunately, I don’t check my notes app nearly enough to justify this usage. For example, the mysterious note to “hide stuff on the couch with pillows” never had its request fulfilled. That note was probably from just a few months ago, and I’m no longer even sure what the aforementioned “stuff” is. I think in some ways that’s the magic of the notes app. Some of these vague notes exist just to make me laugh, some make me remember important things, but it’s nice to know that all of these things at one point or another had enough meaning to me for me to write them down. As someone who struggles a lot with finding motivation for things, it’s nice to know that at one point I had enough motivation to remind myself to switch out the hand towels in the bathroom.