This Christmas I was really fortunate and received many amazing gifts, but during a discussion with Annie, I realized that there is something that I constantly struggle with and it could be the opportunity for a perfect gift: memories.

My memory for life events is really horrible. I can remember maybe five or ten days over the course of my five year high school career, and maybe another five or ten days from the two years I was in college. Over the course of my thirty-three years, I probably remember more events from my life as stories told to me than actually recalling the actual events, but still I feel like what’s stored in my long term memory is a tiny archive compared to what others seem to have.

I feel bad when Annie has to remind me about things that happened in the formative period of our relationship. I can only remember around two names of teachers from high school, and none from college. I couldn’t tell you the names of anyone in my college classes… What was it like to live outside of Inkerman for six years? I remember very little. What was it like to live on the Queen Charlotte Islands? I could probably draw a map of Masset, but I have very few actual memories from my time there.

Sometimes, I review this blog and archives from my old blog and I’m surprised about how much I’ve forgotten about, and not just the trivial things, but important events or changes in my life.

So that leads me to my request. All that I want as gifts this year are stories about me. I know it seems strange, but I’m hoping that people will write, record, and draw events and interactions we’ve had. Hopefully, it will help bring forward some latent memories stored in the deep, near irretrievable parts of my own brain.

So if you have the time and interest, please help me remember my life, and continue to create a digital archive of who I am and what I’ve experienced. My brain seems to mostly keep information relating to the world, technology, and not events in my own life and sometimes that makes me a bit sad.

I hope you’ll find this request interesting and for those concerned about my health, I have previously seen doctors about this that have shrugged it off as just how my brain works and not some disease to be concerned about.