Kimberlee K.

I have a scrapbook in my room filled with paper souvenirs that I’ve collected both from vacations, events, and the average, seemingly ordinary days. I have wristbands from concerts and boarding passes from flights. I have a sticker from the first time I gave blood and a parking ticket from the City of Vancouver. I have birthday cards, receipts from fun bars and ticket stubs from nearly every movie I’ve seen in theaters. But my favorite things, and the ones I collect most, are notes.

I don’t just mean the heartfelt, emotional letters, or the funny, memory filled anecdotes— some of my most prized possessions are the simple scribbles, written on post it notes, scraps of paper, or whatever happened to be in reach. I love the way that notes can bring simple moments back to life, and the way someone’s handwriting can give their words a voice, no matter how long it may have been since you’ve heard it.

By all accounts, I am a hoarder of notes. I’ll keep them whether they say “I love you” or “we’re out of milk.” I have notes written on napkins, drawings from hotel notepads, and a birthday message written on the back of an envelope. On one page in my scrapbook, I have a few sheets of paper covered in check marks, hearts, and the letter w, that came from a night when my roommates and I sat at the kitchen table together, fascinated by the different mechanics of our handwriting.

Each of the notes can take me back to when I got it. Sometimes in vivid detail, other times with only blurry recollection. I might not remember what I was wearing or what else might have happened that day, but I can connect to that moment and to the feeling I had when the note was written. And I love being able to share those moments with my friends and family, and watching as their faces light up in recognition.

“I can’t believe you kept this,” they say.

But as we reconnect all the dots surrounding the day and moment in question, and we smile and laugh as we unlock the memories that had long faded into the background, I think we both realize that this is why.

So don’t mind me as I steal this paper menu from your wedding, or this napkin we doodled on at dinner, or this map from the day we spent at the zoo. It just means I found a little goodness here and I want to keep that goodness.