I have a confession. In my life I hardly ever mention to anyone that I scrapbook. It is like a secret hobby that I have. People who come to my house for the first time are often quite surprised to find my walls adorned with my very own creations and are quick to spot the scrapbooks lined up on the bookshelves. I have seen the horrified expressions on a person’s face when the subject of textured cardstock comes up in conversation, so I guess I would much rather avoid the judgment that comes with the scrapbooking label. The inevitable, “Just what do you need all of that paper for?” comment. You know where all of these comments usually lead, right? The final blow that comes veiled in the seemingly harmless statement of, “Well… I would do something like that, but I am just too busy cleaning, cooking and raising my family.” Ouch.

I love the preconception that there are dust bunnies the size of Mount Rushmore residing under my children’s beds, since I am clearly too busy playing with paper and glue to clean properly. I have been asked, “Do you think your kids will actually want these when they move out?” And, “You know that if there is a fire, you will have lost out on the hours of your life that you spent making these.”

So why do I do it? Why do we, as scrapbookers, put in the time with the paper and glue?

My grandmother has Alzheimer’s Disease, which many of you already know. With every passing day she is losing more and more of who she was. On a bad day, when she looks at a recent picture of her children, she doesn’t remember who they are. On a bad day, she paces up and down the halls of the Alzheimer’s Care Facility and will tell me that she has missed the bus home from school and doesn’t know how she will get home.

My Aunt Lynne made scrapbooks for Nan, which have pictures of our family. While Nan may not remember who everyone is, she will often remember a detail from a picture, perhaps a sweater that she bought someone for Christmas, or a familiar house in the background. When someone is struggling to remember who they are and what their life was like, you cannot imagine the power that a simple scrapbook can hold. As Nan sits in her chair and runs her hand over a picture of her and my grandfather, she will smile and say, “Look how happy we look. We were happy, weren’t we? We‘re smiling, so we must have been happy.”

Let me take this one step further. What memories will my children have of Nan? I want them to remember her as I will remember her, as the kindest and most gentle woman I have ever known. I want them to remember how special those afternoons on the back porch were. They would play with play-doh, drink chocolate milk and sing crazy songs with Nan. She always let them eat as much candy as they possibly could and if it was raining, she would line up all of the couch cushions and pillows so they could jump all over the living room. She would clap her hands, throw her head back and laugh. She would follow our car down the driveway and would wave until we couldn’t see her anymore. Those are the things that I want them to remember, not that she can’t remember their names anymore.

When I scrapbook, I am laying my soul out on a piece of paper. I am putting it out there so that one day when I am not around to tell the stories, my kids will still hear them. These memories that we are creating every day are like anchors. These anchors bind us to this moment and give us a place on this earth. They give us meaning, they give us purpose. I am trying to create a life for my children so that they know where they belong and who their family is. Most importantly, I want them to know that they are loved. It isn’t just on their birthdays or Christmas morning that I love them the best, it is Family Movie Nights when we are all crammed on the couch eating popcorn or when Breuklyn cheats at Candy Land. It is all of these moments and more.

Do I think that you have to scrapbook in order to pass stories along to your children? Absolutely not. It is just how I choose to do it. Do I have dust bunnies the size of Mount Rushmore under the beds at my house? Most certainly, yes. Will I have a clever answer the next time someone makes a snide remark about my patterned paper collection? Probably not. But in all honesty, it won’t matter because I know that this hobby is so much bigger than paper and glue.

That is my take for this week, what’s yours? Why do you scrapbook? Please leave a comment here, I would love to hear why you scrapbook.