Good Enough Memory Keeping
Having been in the home renovating and DIY world for the last several years, we have frequented every hardware store. When we lived in San Diego, my husband discovered Harbor Freight. If you’ve ever been to this specific chain of hardware stores, you may be aware that while they aren’t known for their high-quality products, you can usually find a deal.
Jason is known for many things, one of which is his love of old, imperfect things—he still owns the 1973 Camero he got when he turned sixteen, he has a 1969 Ducati that has yet to consistently run, and at the time was driving a 1988 Ford pickup. Every couple of weeks, a friend would call in the morning: “Hey Jenny, I saw Jason on the side of the highway this morning, it looked like his truck broke down. Is everything ok?” I’d laugh and marvel at the fact that fixing a broken-down truck on the way to work was not only not inconvenient for him but enjoyable. Tinkering with something along the way slows him down and brings him joy. Imagine that.
You can imagine his discovery of Harbor Freight was like finding a golden ticket in a chocolate bar—tools that will kind of work and are a deal? They might break in the new future, allowing him to test his ability to fix them? That’s his brand. This isn’t exactly my brand—I tend to enjoy the finer things in life and am known to be the friend who will always shout “treat yo’self” at something that seems like a frivolous purchase.
In Jason’s work to win me over on his love of Harbor Freight tools, he coined his own slogan, “where good enough is good enough.” We laughed and adopted this as a motto for so many things—our 90s home, our super old camper, and even our parenting at times. As silly as it is, I’m realizing this is a principle of his that I’ve needed to adopt more often in my life than not—done is better than perfect. If it weren’t for Jason’s heart for starting things, even if they aren’t perfectly mapped out yet, I might never have had the courage to jump into photography and other creative work.
I’ve spent the last several years trying to find the perfect, streamlined memory keeping system. I started with doing a Smashbook for my firstborn’s baby book (does anyone remember these?!). I honestly can’t say that I ever finished it. I’ve dabbled in every option under the sun for memory keeping - high end albums, canvases, wood prints, luxury prints, Costco prints, Chatbooks, etc. I’ve also tried to spend hours getting my photos perfectly organized and backed up online. I kept wanting one of these to be a lightbulb moment, the perfect fit - and alas, it has never been that way. I’ve had to learn that starting is better than being paralyzed by imperfection - that good enough is truly good enough. I’ve learned to celebrate all my small wins in memory keeping - getting the ultrasound image out of the junk drawer and into the memory box, placing an order for prints online with Costco, and sticking old film photos into a photo album two months later are all the valuable work of memory keeping.
Even just clicking the photos when the moments happen - that is good enough, friends. I find immense joy flipping through albums with my kids, or when they point to images on the wall and say “I remember that”. The joy is also there when we get lost scrolling through old photos and videos on my phone. Memory keeping is investment art, its work only grows in value over time. What are small wins in memory keeping you can celebrate? What are small ways you can tinker with your memory keeping and allow enjoyment to win rather than striving for the perfect system? You’ll be so glad you did.