The Stories We Almost Forget

There are stories we tell over and over again.

And then there are the ones that somehow slip quietly into the corners of our lives.

Until one day, we find them again.

Lately, I’ve been spending some time going back through my old American Girl in Holland blog posts. Six years of stories. Adventures. Pictures. Travel. Everyday life. Things that seemed important enough to write about at the time, and things that probably seemed completely ordinary.

I thought I was simply organizing old blog posts.

I was wrong.

I was rediscovering a life.

As I worked my way through the years, I found myself remembering things I hadn’t thought about in ages. Some were big moments. Others were so small that I couldn’t believe I’d almost forgotten them.

Like the time I was wandering through a Dutch market looking for chicken noodle soup.

I finally asked one of the stock boys if they had any.

He finally started listening to me speak English and he looked completely bewildered.

After a little back-and-forth, he finally said something along the lines of, “Ahhh… we have soup with noodles and chicken in it.”

Well, yes. Exactly.

And then there was my first Thanksgiving turkey.

I was standing at the butcher’s counter trying to explain that I needed a turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. Except the butcher had no idea what a turkey was or for that matter… Thanksgiving.

I tried explaining.

She still didn’t understand.

And finally, I resorted to the only thing I could think of.

“Gobble, gobble, gobble!”

And suddenly, we had a breakthrough.

These are the stories I almost forgot.

They’re not the stories that made the headlines. They aren’t necessarily the grand adventures or the places we traveled. They’re the little moments that remind me what it actually felt like to live in another country.

And perhaps that’s why I’m finding them so precious now.

I’ve also rediscovered an ABC book I created from all the Dutch words I was learning, and an entire month when I took a picture every single day. I had forgotten how much I was documenting—not because I knew someday I’d be looking back at it, but because I was simply trying to capture the life I was living.

At the time, I didn’t know I was creating memories.

I was just living them.

Maybe that’s the funny thing about memories. We don’t always know which moments will stay with us.

Sometimes it’s the trip to Venice.

Sometimes it’s a beautiful Dutch windmill.

And sometimes it’s standing in a market making turkey noises.

Years later, those little pieces become breadcrumbs leading us back to who we were.

And that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately as summer begins to wind down.

How much of our lives are tucked away in photographs, old journals, blog posts, recipe cards, letters, and stories we’ve told a hundred times?

How many pieces of ourselves are waiting patiently to be rediscovered?

I’m beginning to think that maybe we don’t always have to go looking for something new.

Sometimes we just need to look back.

Not to live in the past.

But to remember.

To notice the woman, I was.

To appreciate the life, I’ve lived.

And maybe, every once in a while, to laugh at the woman who stood in a Dutch market saying, “Gobble, gobble, gobble,” and thought that was a perfectly reasonable way to ask for a turkey.

Some stories almost disappear.

I’m glad I found a few of mine.

And I have a feeling there are still quite a few waiting to be remembered.

Until next time,
keep reading.
Lisa