From the Desk of Nettio Designs Issue No. 13

Back in January, when I first introduced From the Desk of Nettio Designs and this whole idea of creatively capturing your life adventures, one of the questions I was asked was if I would talk about how I capture the negative in our lives as well. In light of recent events at the Boston Marathon on Monday, today seems like an appropriate time to share a little bit about that.

I’ve never been to Boston and I didn’t know anyone who ran or attended the Boston Marathon. But as a military spouse, hearing about improvised explosive devices and amputations happening on US soil hits a little too close to home. These are known risks in my husband’s line of work – risks we accept while hoping and praying for everyone’s safe return. In a very sad but very real way, these types of stories or injuries are considered somewhat normal in our little military-driven world. But we expect to hear about them in foreign overseas locations not on our home turf.

What happened in Boston was a terrible and senseless tragedy. These were sports fans and family and friends cheering on their loved ones. They had no reason to think they’d be in any danger and my heart absolutely breaks for every single one of the families and individuals whose lives have been forever changed by this one horrific event.

When tragedies like this strike, I think it raises a lot of questions about our responsibilities as memory keepers, especially for those those of us participating in every day storytelling like Project Life where so much focus is on day-to-day events.

• Do we have a responsibility to future generations to include these types of events in our scrapbooks?

• Do we act as a reporter and share the facts or should we dig deep and share how these events affect us personally?

• If we choose to leave out these stories, choose to focus on the good in our lives instead of the bad, will that somehow make our story less authentic?

My answer to all of these questions is that you should do whatever feels true to your personal story. Whether that’s saving a newspaper article, journaling your personal emotions or leaving these events out of your scrapbooks entirely, it’s your choice.

It’s not your responsibility to tell everyone’s story. It’s only your responsibility to tell your story. How you choose to tell that story is entirely up to you.

For me personally, I tend to approach these events from my own personal perspective. I will likely never scrapbook a layout detailing the facts of an event like 9/11. I figure there are plenty of news accounts available if some day someone wanted to read about what happened. But I may one day scrapbook the story of our visit to Ground Zero and how as a military family it affected us eight years after the event. Because that is what is true to my story.

The same is true for the Boston Marathon tragedy. Right now I think I will likely include a journaling card in my Project Life spread for this week with some of my personal thoughts on what happened because that’s what feels true to my own life experiences. Your approach may be totally different and that’s perfectly ok.

It saddens me that we live in a world where tragedies like this happen. But negative experiences and events are a very real part of life and I think it’s healthy for us as memory keepers to maintain a dialogue about how we approach these types of events in our lives. So with that I want to know:

Do you scrapbook the good with the bad? How do you approach these types of stories and events? 

Rather than end this week with my usual jolly send-off, I’m just going to share this great quote from comedian Patton Oswalt:

“So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”

Thoughts and prayers to everyone in Boston. 

This post is Issue No. 13 of my From The Desk of Nettio Designs weekly email series. Want to get in on the action? Sign up for Nettio Designs emails here.

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