Just no stopping

It's a while since I've posted here, so this is to check in to say that this process of remembering every day that passes continues as I near the 7 year landmark on 17 December.

I continue to use the same methods discussed here to add memory tags to my mental calendar, reviewing the past month, morning and evening, and calling up a selection of days preceeding that. Sometimes I'll use a two or three-day window covering the same days of the week, such as Friday to Saturday of every week from January 2018.

Once I've covered the year over the course of a week, I might just take the same days of the months. Today being the 8th December, that would be the 8th and 9th of each month.

My technique for reviewing a selection of memory tags prior to that has become much more relaxed. I've been switching between sequential reviews, covering the whole period month by month until I reach the present day, then doing the same year by year in reverse: 2017, 2016, 2015 etc.

Other times, I'll take a month from each year, then cycle back to the beginning.

With over 2500 days, it might take me a couple of months to do the recall of the whole period in spare moments of time, out running, waiting in a queue, driving, etc.

I run through some sequences with ease, like a familiar song. Others seem as faded as they should be by the intervening years and there are taunting blanks on my mental calendar. But if ever I think this process has run its course, they come back to me, often flooding me with gratitude that I have not forgotten the events captured in the tags.

I fear it will become harder and harder as the review periods become longer. For a long time a month between reviews seemed the limit, but now I am stretching to two months.

Yet, such is the powerful feeling of reward when my synapses fire and an elusive image reasserts itself, I am hopeful that my brain will become better at doing this with time.

The importance of the map

For over six years I have been pinning images to a mental calendar as memory tags to remember every day that passes. 

To prevent these fading away, I find I have to review them within a month or so. This simply involves calling up the image, which may take a few seconds. Less, if I have a sequence of related images.

I now have over 2300 days to recall since December 17, 2011, and the review patterns I have used over the years have had to evolve as the number of days has grown.

Currently, I recall the days sequentially, aiming to cover several months during the slack time during the day, when driving, exercises, or preparing to sleep or after waking up.

Previously, I used patterns. For example, at the outset I recalled the images for the same day of the week from past months, or for a two or three day window.

The sequential approach is easier in some ways, as there is often a progression of activities or events from day to day. It is easier to orientate myself.

But recently I have found that more recent days have presented the greatest problems with recall. I have to find my way through the sequence. The images are less associated with the mental calendar that I picture in my mind's eye.

So I have returned to the past technique of recalling a two-day window per week for the past six months. Today being Thursday, I recall the images for every Thursday and Friday in this period. 

Stepping from week to week on the month-to-view calendar sheets I visualise more firmly fixes the image to the geographical location of the day on the calendar. 

This spatial awareness is an important additional tool for helping me find the images.

Six years later

I began remembering every day that passes on 17 December 2011.

The sixth anniversary has passed and here we are in 2018, over 2200 days later.

I'm still going strong, though recently switched the nature of the long recall of days I do every month to refresh the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags.

Last time, I start on 1 January 2016 and went through the whole year, day by day. Then the same with 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011 (much of 2011 is blank as there were few landmarks I was able to identify retrospectively).

I started with 2016 because in the previous strategy of jumping through the months, recalling two weeks chunks, was becoming increasingly confusing and I'd struggle to complete the final year or two in the time available before I had to start again. So I took it leisurely and sequentially, which makes it much easier to find the tags.

Then I started again with 2011. I'm currently up to August 2013 and fit in a few months each day, with no real pressure as to when I finish. I'd like to do so in less than a month, just because that is the longest I've ever left a memory tag before refreshing it. I'm not sure how well they will survive otherwise.

I still do the last month of tags, morning and night. Every now and then, I'll go through the past 6 months sequentially or two days per week, as of old.

There is still a lot I get out of the grounding of recalling these past days. Although as they have grown to over 6 years - over 10% of my life - the period I can remember day-by-day does not seem so different to the earlier foggy period.

The past is another world, even when I can revisit the memories.