Ten years of remembering every day that passes

I began this process on 17 December 2011 and let the tenth anniversary pass without comment, so the time has come to reflect.

Firstly, I continue with this process. Every day I record a memory tag on my mental calendar and regularly review past days.

My current review process is to go through a month at a time per year. I'm currently on the month of September, remembering consecutive days of each month from 2012. It continues to be enriching. I would not have thought of many or even most of the events covered, but for this process. Indeed, I rarely recall events from the years prior to 2012 and have few landmarks for them.

The passage of time continues to surprise me. The moments captured in my images are fresh, but my perspective on them changes. Remembering every day gives me appreciation of how much happens in a year, yet I also feel the relentlessness of time's passing.

I have no intention to stop, but it has inevitably become harder to refresh the memory tags on my mental calendar. When this was easiest, I was recalling each image at least once per month. With approaching 4000 images, I need to get through 3 months per day. That rarely happens as my discipline has waned and I've let things slide when I've struggled to remember tags. Other times, an image may distract me to recall other events of the day or associated days.

Over the years, my review process has adapted as the days have piled up. My current approach to cope is not to obsess if tags elude me, but to go through what I can in the hope that missing tags will appear next time around. It is often the case that recalling subsequent months or years will suddenly unlock other tags. They are still there.

For many years, I wrote nothing down, though sometimes I might have to look back through photos or other records to find out what I was doing on a particular day where the memory tag alluded more. Prior to this process, I kept a diary and a few years ago I caught up with it, writing entries from years before retrospectively based on my memory tags.

More recently, I've kept a diary as I go, recording significant events and identifying the memory tag at the top of the page. This is not a substitute for my mental calendar, but it helps me to reinforce the memory tags during the early weeks.

It's always been the case that most recent tags are most elusive because I have spent less time reinforcing them. I've learned that I need to regularly refresh the tags by calling them to mind. What worked best was running through every day of the past month and a couple of days per month of the preceding 6 months, then selected periods of earlier years.

Often these days, I don't even complete the daily review of even the last month and so have to resort to the diary to fill in blanks. Occasionally, I'll look further back, but generally the diary is for these more recent days.

Another pressure on my time to remember is I'm using my brain for other purposes. My New Year's Resolution in 2019 was to learn the piano. Key to success is building mental representations of music and the keyboard. Increasingly, I do this by playing pieces on my mental piano, which now competes with my mental calendar for my attention.

But I'm not giving up. I am increasingly grateful for memories of times that have gone and the people who are no longer with us. 

Relatives and friends who have passed away. 

My mother's decline into Alzheimer's, which has wiped us from her memory. And put her into a care home when she became terrified of the strangers keeping her in a strange house. 

For a while she believed the care home was her childhood home and she had just come in for a rest from helping her father in the garden. Now those memories appear to have gone too, and though she is friendly when we visit, barely communicates. She smiles at us, but for the warmth of human contact, not recognition.

This shows me the fragility of our brains, that our memories are essential for our relationships, but that we are also more than our memories. Aspects of our personalities reside at a deeper level.

Sometimes, I wonder if there is something to be gained from letting these days go. It is normal to forget. 

Yet, I can see no advantage. The great benefit of this process, even as I struggle with it, is it gives me a rounded view of my life. 

The few memories I have from the years before sometimes taunt me with my failings and are missing the perspective given by putting isolated incidents into their surrounding context. 

So, I will continue to remember every day that passes, as best I can, and continue to be amazed by what it is to live a life.

To those giving this a try

It's great to see comments from people who have been inspired by this blog to try their own experiment in remembering every day that passes. 

People sometimes suggest different approaches - everyone has to find what works for them, which will probably change over time as the days pile up.

I have just replied to a recent comment as follows:

Thank you for your comment. Please keep us updated on how your approach works.

When I began - nearly 10 years ago now - I had the hope that this process might develop hyperthymesia, the ability a very small number of people have to remember every day without memory tricks.

That hasn't happened, but I continue. It is still rewarding - if not more so with the memory tags that have been reinforced stretching back 10 years.

Though it takes some time to do the reviews, it is only a small fraction of my day and I am certain it is beneficial to my mental health to think about this wide range of experiences, not just those that come to my mind unbidden.

Now I know what this is all about

I began this process of remembering every day that passes over 3000 days ago.

I continue to pin an image to my mental calendar at the end of every day as a memory tag.

But as I've been recording here, it has become increasingly harder to refresh the images.

Several times I've thought of giving it up as an experiment that has reached its natural end.

But I haven't. During the current coronavirus pandemic lockdown, the memory tags mean I can distinguish between days with few distinguishing features and mark the passage of time. Otherwise they would just be a blur.

More importantly, I've now realised what this process is all about.

I had hoped it would induce hyperthymesia, a rare ability to access all memories as if they are fresh. That hasn't happened. It seems that I need to review the images pinned to my mental calendar once per month to be able to remember them easily next time around. It's a memory exercise. It hasn't rewired my brain to make recall effortless.

Now there are too many days to run through all the images on that timescale, even though the process I use has evolved over time. My current method is to run through a year of memories over the course of a week or more. There are now approaching 9 years to cover.

I was becoming frustrated because sometimes I'd hit blanks and either take a break for a few days or jump ahead and hope I could come back and fill in the blanks - which generally does work.

Yet, as the reviews have taken longer, the monthly target of reviewing each image has become a forlorn hope and I face the prospect of each review being harder every time and blank days appearing and joining up into voids in my memory.

Just like the years before I began this process, where the reference points are few and far between.

But it struck me as I was recalling images of my mother, now in the later stage of Alzheimer's where she no longer remember me or her husband of 62 years, that this experiment was always about remembering.

Remembering the days I have lived. The people I love. The experiences we have shared. The places we have been.

I've currently been progressing through 2016. Before my mother's illness was bad, but when there were signs of it. Those signs are more poignant now. The times of normality and happiness more precious. Revisiting the past continues to be enriching as I see it differently as my vantage point changes and its impact on the present also changes.

Going through these memory tags in the past few days, it struck me that this is no longer principally to refresh the images for my memory trick. I am going to stop worrying that it's taking far longer than a month to complete the cycle. That pressure is off.

I'll finish this year in the time it takes. Then move onto the next in the same way. But without pressure to hit some target of weeks or months covered in each period.

It is only the recent days where discipline is required to establish the images.

I am savouring remembering. Filling in most of the blanks. Sometimes resorting to looking back at pictures on my phone - which is not cheating, as I set the rule. A photograph can orientate me and suddenly unlock a whole sequence of memories.

Even as some images slip away from me, the memories of these years are far richer than the previous decades of my life. And I will continue to add my memory tag for each day.

This was always about remembering.

Brain chemicals

Remembering every day that passes continues to be part of my routine.

To stop the days for nearly eight years I've been doing this now from fading, I call up the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags. The techniques I used in the early months and years, as described in the "how I remember" posts can no longer cope with the volume. Instead of moving windows recalling images from a few days each week or month, I now run sequentially through the days.

Sometimes I start with 17 December 2011 and work forwards. Sometimes I'll complete the current year and then each previous year. Sometimes a year here, and a year there.

Generally at some point of the month, I'll recall the images for the same month of each year, for the perspective on my life it brings me. It's now October. It's interesting to know what I was doing for every day of each October from 2012 to the present year.

Sometimes I can rattle through a period of days or weeks in seconds. Other times, I'm stuck and may have to range ahead until I find an image to anchor me and then can try to fill in the blanks.

There are two realisations this ever growing challenge to refresh the memory tags have brought.

Firstly, it seems recalling the images about once per month is about right to maintain easy recall. I know when a retrospective of the current month in past years strikes images I've recently remembered because they come so easily to mind. However, covering the whole eight-year period takes more than a month now and I fear it will become progressively more difficult.

And the longer it takes to find the images, the less I get done in the short snatches of time when I do this, and so the longer between recalls. It's a vicious circle. Previously such challenges have led me to find new refresh techniques. But I don't seem to have anywhere else to go now. It seems inevitable blanks will appear or I'll simply give up on the recall procedure.

The second realisation is that there is something going on in my brain that determines how easy it is to recall images.

I sometimes find I am struggling to fill the blanks in a month and so put it aside and get on with something else or move on to the next period. But then I'll come back again and suddenly the images all pop into place (I can remember the point I had reached in the refresh process from the wave front of clear images).

It may be that a specific memory tag orientates me and triggers other recalls.

But other times it seems there is something else going on, as if the presence or lack of some brain chemicals makes all the difference.

It is worrying in a way that my ability to recall varies like this. My mother has Alzheimer's and I see how her ability to connect varies throughout the day and from day to day. Might there be a link? Could this be an early symptom in me?

On the other hand, it could be down to my level of tiredness or blood sugar.

It's something I will continue to explore.

On this day

Opening Facebook sometimes on my phone, I get one of those reminder messages of something I posted two, five, seven years before, or whatever.

Before scrolling down to take a look, I take a few moments to scan through my mental calendar to predict what it will be. Usually, I can figure it out.

When I can't it's generally because it's a photo from a running road race I took part in a few days before. These become available from official photographers some time later. Now I've got used to this, I check for the last race I ran when I don't have a specific event for the date that might have prompted a posting.

It's a useful test and a reminder that, but for this process, I would rarely have a clue of what would be pictured. I wonder how surprising they are to others, or can you predict?

So many days, so many years

I'm now over seven years into this process of remembering every day that passes, having started on 17 December 2011.

I've had to adapt the refresh process to review the images pinned to my mental calendar, but I still aim to revisit each day once per month.

Sometimes an image evades me now. But, even so, I do not accept they are fully lost, because on a subsequent run-through, I've had them come back to me with a flash of endorphins and relief that pins them more firmly to the calendar for next time.

This process has changed my concept of time. Many of these years are so long ago that, save for this process, the whole year would be largely lost to me. If I choose a year before I began – let's say 2009 – I can work out where I was and what I was doing in that year and, if I think about it, maybe remember some specific events, some of them vividly. But the images are sparse. What did I do on my birthday that year? My wife's? My mother's? I have no idea and, if I do scratch up a memory, then I'd have no certainty it was for that year.

I can answer that question for every year since I began this process. Of course, I only easily remember the images pinned to my mental calendar. Sometimes these will open a door to much more regarding both the event represented and the rest of the day, but often, they are all I have left. After all, as I write this, there are 2,669 days stretching behind me.

The most curious – and even disturbing – aspect of having these memories and revisiting them as I do, is the shock at how long ago these years are. I will recall an event at, say, the Olympics in 2016 and it seems staggering that was almost three years' ago.

As I have carried these days and years with me, like no others, there is a freshness to them that makes it hard sometimes to separate one year from another. In the normal scheme of things, the fading of our memories perhaps gives us a sense of how long ago a time was.

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.

Fitting it all in and playing the song

I can remember each of the 2000+ days since I began this process of remembering of every day that passes. Lembransation works, but I need to spend some time each day recalling the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags or they will fade.

The posts tagged with "how I remember" show how my methodology has changed over time.

Recently, I have made bigger changes to make it more relaxed. This is possible because I have confidence in the techniques I have developed over these five and a half years.

Every few days when I am waking up I will think back to the same date in past years. Today is 1st August, so I reviewed the memory tags for 1 - 4 August for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. This takes little time. It serves as a useful reminder of upcoming birthdays and anniversaries. It is nice to be able to tell people, you remember this time two years ago we were....

Until recently, I was doing this review every morning, but to save time I use a larger window. It is often the case that I need to scan over adjacent days in any case to orientate myself, so this makes use of the effort.

Every morning, or at some point during the day, I will run through every day from starting a month ago. Every now and then, I'll extend this to a couple of months, or even longer, if I feel the earlier images are not a set as I would like. Sometimes I will resurrect an earlier strategy of reviewing a two or three day window for every week of the past 6 months, every Monday and Tuesday, for example.

Basically, I am flexible. I have this range of techniques and I'll fit in whatever I have time and feel the need for.

My long-term review now consists of reviewing half a month at a time from the start of this process over a period of half a month. So I am currently reviewing 28 of each month to 14 of the following month and have until 14 August to complete the process, though sometimes I'll overrun. Then I'll take 14 - 28 of every month until 28 August.

I do have the ambition to complete a year per day, but sometimes scrabbling around for memory tags means I get so far and then leave it for the next day. So far, every memory tag comes back to me eventually, though some are a little vague because they are little more than "I was in the office", which is more of a placeholder than something significant with details I want to remember.

I continue to tell myself that the longer the period is ago, the easier it should be to remember, because I have refreshed the images so many times. The landscape is familiar. Often there is a whole week I can cover in a fraction of a second, because I created interconnected images. For example, they may be on the theme of where I had lunch and who with. Once I have one image and remembered the theme, the whole sequence is there.

Philosophically, I'm trying to take this further. I am having another go at learning a musical instrument and can pick out tunes by ear on the keyboards and guitar (a skill I had not developed in past attempts). It amazes me how my brain has stored songs that I may not have heard for years, but are instantly familiar so that I can recognise when I am hitting the right key or plucking the right string.

What if each year of my mental calendar was a song, as easily remembered?

Time lost

I now have over 2000 days of my mental calendar with memory tags to help me remember them.

As I look back on events over the five plus years since I began this process of remembering every day that passes, it is increasingly striking how much of this time would have faded to nothing. As with earlier years, I may have only retained a sense of the year and a few key events. My sister's wedding and the death of my niece in 2013. Attending the Olympics in 2016. Just a few pegs, rather than 365 or 366 for every year.

Every now and then I feel maybe it is time to let it all go. Today is July 31. How important is it to me to remember what I was doing on this exact same date in past years? Let's see:

July 31, 2012: Taking my parents to see my mother's sister. This turned out to be the last time we saw her.

July 31, 2013: Taking part in a committee meeting - in my memory tag I go around the table and remember everyone who was there.

July 31, 2014: Visiting my parents and making them dinner. My mother has Alzheimer's and at this time it was only just becoming apparent.

July 31, 2015: It's hard to believe that 2015 is two years ago. In fact, all these years seem to fresh to be receding so far. On this day we too two of my wife's sisters for a picnic in a favourite country park.

July 31, 2016: On the way to the Rio Olympics.

And then I realise how important it is not to lose this time. There is pleasure and enrichment to be found when the days are not lost forever. Often when I am having a particularly good day, I think this is special and I look forward to remembering it in the months and years to come.

But this process requires an investment of time, which is time lost from other things. As the days have piled up I have had to adapt the process of reviewing the images pinned to my mental calendar to refresh them. I'll post next time about my current method.

Not dead yet

Anyone who read of the experiment I began in January 2016 of imagining I had 18 months left to live (the period David Bowie had lived after his diagnosis of cancer) may have wondered what happened when the deadline of 29 May 2017 arrived.

Well, I am still here, is the good news.

We were on holiday and it was with a little nervousness that I drove us to our destination on that Monday imagining it could be the last day of my life. It may well end like this - totally unexpected while pursuing other plans.

But I survived and now my mental calendar stretches before me once more, with a possibility of days and no arbitrary end followed by oblivion.

I have refocused during this period and looked at my priorities. I'm trying once again to learn to play a musical instrument, with the aim of being at least able to play a party piece. I've started using some inline skates I bought on a whim a few years ago and had never put on. I even took an online course in comedy and have been writing attempted comedic thoughts as a daily exercise.

I've also reorganised my working life to reduce stress and better manage demands on my time and will likely make a bigger change in career in the coming months.

How much is down to valuing the time I have left due to this death exercise, and Lembransation in total, and how much is just my willingness to reassess and try new things is questionable.

But what is certain is I am not dead yet and the days that are left are to be valued.

Thirty days

My memory tag for 11 January 2016 is learning that David Bowie had died of cancer. It was reported that he had a prognosis of 18 months to live before this and had spent his remaining days revisiting places with his family, recording a new album (to be launched a matter of days before he died), and preparing a stage show, Lazarus, featuring his music.

As a philosophical exercise, I wondered how it would be to know I had a similar period left and pictured my mental calendar coming to an end part way through 2017. At the start of the year, I put the number of 150 days on the time left. Now it is down to 30 days. Recently, I calculated the date of my hypothetical last day.

It has been an interesting exercise. At various times, things that might have worried or stressed me in the past have faded out of importance, because life is too short to worry about them.

I've reassessed aspects of my life, deciding to make some major changes to my working life, which I am in the process of putting into action over the final 30 days.

The exercise has focussed my mind to put time into activities, such as music, which I have neglected for many years.

I have tried to avoid seeing a developing digestive problem as a sign of what will kill me on the scheduled date. I warded off the paranoia and hypochondria by telling myself that these symptoms were probably nothing and it could be something sudden and unexpected like a traffic accident that is scheduled for my final day. I've had the tests anyway, and the problem is real, but not life threatening. I'm hoping that the change in my working life might make a difference.

So the final days are ticking by towards 29 May. We are moving country again and so I have seen all my wife's family to say goodbye and will be seeing all of my own over the coming 30 days.

It is important to value relationships. Although we do not know how many days we have left, they are numbered.

I don't really expect to die on 29 May. I certainly don't want or aim to make it happen. But I am approaching the day with a certain amount of trepidation, while making the most of the days until then.

I feel that something will happen on that day. Some change, even if it is only to how I look at life after it has passed and the future dates on my mental calendar stretch before me again, with a question mark hanging over how may are left.

Across the years

In my last post I wrote about pros and cons of my current method for refreshing older memory tags pinned to my mental calendar. The method has changed over time. Currently I recall images for a two-week block of days from each month since I began this process of remembering every day that passes. I don't spend long doing this, just covering several months of my calendar every day.

This gradual progression over the five years I have filled since beginning this process rarely reminds me of what I was doing a year ago as the dates don't coincide. So I have missed birthdays.

The solution is a simple change to my morning review of more recent days. This review passes a two-day window over every week of my calendar for the past six months. To finish, I review the images for every day of the past month.

The change I have made is to add a short review, recalling the images on the same date from when I began this process over five years ago.

In fact, I'm doing this as a two-day window to benefit from the association between adjacent days. So today being February 22, I have recalled the images for the 22nd and 23rd of each month. If there is a birthday tomorrow, I'll remember.

Navigating my mental calendar is now a familiar exercise, so it is easy to locate the day of the week on which these dates fall. Today is Wednesday, February 22, 2012 was also Wednesday. I already recalled the image in yesterday's review so it is familiar to me. A conversation with a particular friend. The image for the next day comes easily to mind – I have been reviewing this sequence for five years, after all. A bike ride.

And so to February 22, 2013. I know this is a Friday (the patterns are clear to me). The image tag is the sound of the security chain running through my cycle helmet as I lock up a different bike in a different city on a different continent. The next day the tag is a particularly important conversation with my wife.

February 22, 2014. A Saturday (the progression is one day when it is not a leap year). It takes a moment to orientate myself on this day. I need a sense of the year. Where I was. What was the theme of this part of the year. When it doesn't come to me instantly, a quick scan of nearby days reminds me, and I know this was a day I had my haircut with my 80-year-old barber in the city I was in at that time and then took the car I had borrowed to check the tyres and oil. The next day's tag is driving to my sister-in-law's to return her car.

February 22, 2015. Sunday, obviously. This part of the year is marked by the illness of a relative. I was visiting and on this day, after a cross-country run in the morning, other relatives dropped by. I left for the city I was working the same day. The tag for Monday comes to mind because it is also about running, this time in a forest near to where I was staying. My landlady's daughter called by when we were chatting in the kitchen, on a run of her own. I learned of a nearby nature reserve for the first time, despite living on and off for over 20 years. My memory tag for the next day is running to visit it.

This was two years ago and I am shocked it is not more recent.

February 22, 2016. Monday, of course. I'm still not fully used to the idea that 2016 is now history set in stone.

The hardest tags to remember were those from 2016. In fact, the tag for February 22 eluded me yesterday. I had to stop worrying at them and let it float into my mind today. It did so while I was having my hair cut (tag for today!). On February 22, 2016 my wife and I went for breakfast in a café we had not visited for some time. She forgot her sunglasses, so I ran there on February 23 to collect them.

This journey across the years is a new addition to my refresh technique and the fabric of my mind is still flexing under its impact on my perceptions of the passage of time.

If I had not begun this Lembransation process, these years would be as indistinct now as those that lay further in the past. The memory tags can transport me back, but sometimes the tag is all I remember. It is really a proxy for the memories of the day. My mind has otherwise let it go, it seems, as with so many of the earlier days in my nearly 52 years.

And yet... this flexing of my mind feels like exercising a new muscle, perhaps strengthening abilities to be able to step into the image and relive the moment, exploring from there. This has happened unexpectedly a couple of times already.

There is a philosophical aspect to this as yet unclear. The person I was five years ago is not the person I am now. I travel back not only through time and space, but through the layers that construct me. I'm not a stranger to myself, but the younger version is different.

On the monthly cycle of these visits across the years, I see my younger self recede, yet it is my present self that is moving forward.

Counting the days

My memory tag for Monday January 11, 2016 is waking to the news that David Bowie had died after an 18 month battle with cancer.

He died just days after releasing his last album and preparing a musical featuring some of his songs. It was reported that he had time and health to visit old places with his family.

I decided to embark on a thought experiment, imagining I had a similar time left for living. On January 1 this year (2017), I realised I had about five months of this time left, or 150 days. Those I am counting down. It is now February 17, so just over 100 days to go.

It is a thought experiment, even if hypochondria is telling me the pain in my right side is colon cancer. I've researched it, though, and it does not seem likely, as sometimes the pain is on my left side. Just IBS.

But perhaps it will be a car accident, robbery or terrorist attack that takes me. I won't make this a self-fulfilling prophesy, but it is easy to think that my days are numbered.

Which, of course, they are. The number I am counting down may be wrong, but one things is for sure, my days are finite and each one is gone forever when the clock strikes midnight.

Knowing this, is strangely comforting. I do not need to stress about small things.

Five years

The end of the year 2016 means I now have five complete years where I can remember every single day that has passed.

I review these days in a new routine to refresh the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar. 

Initially, I reviewed two or three days of each month, corresponding to today's date. So on January 12, I would briefly recall the images for, say, 11, 12 and 13 of each month. Every day, I moved the window along one day. As the days piled up, I switched to a two-day window, then I dropped the overlap, instead giving myself both the 12 and 13th to run through all the months so far accumulated in this process.

Now, I give myself two or three weeks to complete the review by using a far bigger window. At present, I am recalling the images for days 7 - 21 of each month. Two weeks. The longer run of days makes it far easier to recall the memory tags, compared to dipping in to find just an isolated pair. I'm part way through 2012 at the moment. I have until January 21 to cover all the month until 2017.

Then I'll start again, with a window from 21 - 7, that is, covering the end of the month and moving a week into the next. The day on which I finish orientates me for the start of the next window, as it is exactly two weeks later - the same day of the week.

This is for my long review. I also review the past month completely at the end of the day. Most days, I will run a two-day window over each week of the past 6 months, as has been part of my routine from early on.

The turn of the year is always a little disorientating. The completed year still seems so fresh, but now it is done and dusted. I have to identify a theme for the year as a whole to help me identify it among the other completed years.

The more distant years are well known to me from so many reviews. But I still gain insights roaming over them. The present gives everything a new context. 

I've still not lost a day, but with over 1800 memory tags, I can sometimes confuse a sequence of days across the years. At more mundane times, I may differentiate the days by capturing some minor details I want to remember, such as what I did for lunch. This is not remarkable, but serves to remind me of the places in my routine of the time, some of which have since closed or changed. Sometimes I stray into a sequence from a different year and have to correct when I run up against a day alerts me to the fact.

This process gives a profound measure of time. People have been born or have died. I have progressed with running, from my first 5 km race in 2012, to marathons and my first trophy. Today I looked at the light fitting above the bed and remembered it was four years to the day that I replaced it.

So much happens in a year. So much more in five. Events in the years before also come to mind, but however clear the memories, they are generally unanchored.

I have no reason to stop.

Remembering the Olympics

The Rio 2016 Olympics finished on Sunday. There is a four-year wait until the next edition in Tokyo.

I know what four years is like now, taken one day at a time, as the images on my mental calendar cover every day back to the London 2012 Olympics - and beyond.

I don't remember everything about the 2012 Olympics, but several key events are recorded in the memory tags for days during that period.

The opening ceremony took place on 27 July 2012. We watched it at gathering in a church, after the "All the Bells" ringing across the UK that morning. Much of the ceremony is memorable enough not to be specifically coded in my memory tag. The Queen and James Bond. Mr Bean. The Olympic Flame. The Olympic Rings in flames above the stadium.

We were in the UK to see some of the events. On 29 July 2012, Brazil beat Belarus 3-1 in the men's football. The team included Neymar, a star already, but qualifying under the under-23 rule nonetheless. Neymar scored the winning penalty in the shootout in the final against Germany on 20 August 2016 (revenge for the 7-1 defeat to Germany in the World Cup in 2014, coded in my memory tag for Tuesday 8 July 2014).

We had a few days holiday in Scotland after Brazil's game in 2012 and my memory tags capture the people and places visited on that trip. The Olympics is background with no key events recorded on my mental calendar until 5 August 2012. We were driving to our next destination listening to commentary of Andy Murray in the tennis final at Wimbledon. We arrived in time to watch the end of the match, which he won, and then go on to play in the mixed doubles final, which he and his partner lost.

The men's single final this time around was also on Sunday - 14 August 2016. Murray won again. Memorably, the BBC interviewer congratulated him on being the first person to win a second gold medal in tennis and, to his credit and acclaim, he responded that Venus and Serena Williams had already won four gold medals each. His victory is included in the image on my mental calendar.

Back to 2012. We went to Hyde Park to watch the Olympics on big screens on 8 August and returned for the women's open-water swimming the following morning. In Rio, this took place off Copacabana on 15 August, memorable because the Brazilian swimmer, Poliana, dragged from the Serpentine with hypothermia in 2012, won Bronze after a French swimmer two places before her was disqualified for obstruction.

That day in 2012, we also went to watch volleyball at Earls Court and the women's football final at Wembley (USA v Japan, 2 - 1). The defeat of the Brazilian women's team on 16 August 2016 to Sweden is in my memory tag for that day.

Super Saturday in 2012, when three Golds were won by Team GB, took place on 4 August 2012, but I had to look that up, because it was not in my memory tag. We were actually travelling that day to Glasgow on our return south. The details of that journey and the hotel where we stayed are pinned to my calendar and have been refreshed in a fraction of a second when I have run through these date in periodic reviews. But in those reviews, I've never recalled it was Super Saturday as well. Stopping to think now, my memory of watching the wins of Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah, is distinctly vague.

But I remember the emotion and pride afterwards the British population had in the GB athletes - and in itself for celebrating their victory so enthusiastically. Even the right-wing, xenophobic tabloid The Sun was full of praise and repeated a joke doing the rounds on Twitter: "A Muslim, a mixed race lass & a ginger bloke walk into a bar. And everyone gets them a drink." Usually minorities would be the target of the punchline - now the punchline was they were accepted as heroes in modern Britain.

Of course, my calendar since then has the vote to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016, following xenophobic scaremongering and followed by a rise in hate crimes against minorities.

All the same, the three GB athletes deserved a drink once more with Super Saturday mark 2, on 13 August 2016, taking Bronze (Rutherford - long jump), Silver (Ennis-Hill - heptathlon) and Gold (Farah - 10,000 metres). I was there to see it in person this time, as we visited Rio to follow the Olympics. Elaine Thompson took Gold in the women's 100 m in the same session and Thiago Bras, who went on to win men's pole vault, qualified for the final. Most of our tickets were for cheaper qualifying rounds, but we gladly paid for the tickets to see history being made on this day.

Mo Farah also won the 5,000 metres in London 2012. I don't have it in a memory tag, but this time I do remember watching the race, particularly the commentator saying it was slow. I've checked and it was on 11 August 2012, so I've now added into my image for that day, which reminded me of a bike ride.

Is it cheating to modify an image so long after the event?

Seeing as I make the rules, no.

I avoid making false memories, creating an image for something that must have happened, but for which I have no memory. In this case, I remember the event, but didn't recall the date. Sticking a pin in it is allowed. I've decided.

It also provides a symmetry to remembering Rio 2016. My image for Saturday 20 August 2016 includes Mo Farah winning the 5,000 metres for the second time. In both cases, this was a week on from his 10,000 metres win. Patterns like this help me.

The remainder of the London Olympics pass in the background. My memory tags are about other trips and visits or work I was doing. That is, until 22 August 2012 and the closing ceremony. My tag is cycling to where we are staying, knowing it is on that evening. The ceremony itself is not in my image as my conventional memory serves up details of it.

I followed Rio 2016 more closely and spent more days attending events and this is reflected in the memory tags.

Now I have two Olympic Games in this period of remembering every day that passes. Four years to Tokyo. I will be filling the days until then.

When were we here?

I often surprise family and friends these days when we visit somewhere and someone says, "When were we last here?"

On a recent trip to a café, I was able to reply, "October 17, 2013. It was a Thursday and we stopped here on the way to visit that place in the countryside."

I even remembered what we had eaten and that in our subsequent visit we had spent some time identifying trees. The trees are included in my memory tag for the day as a way to store the features I need to identify them in future.

I was with my parents on both trips. My mother is suffering memory loss, which is becoming progressively worse. She asked repeatedly if we had been to the café before, even though it is one we have visited many times over the years, though most of those visits are lost in the mists before I began this process of remembering every day that passes.

Eventually my mother stopped asking if we had been to the café before, but then started to say she had been to the café just a few weeks ago. Somehow she had now connected with a past memory, but could not place it in time.

It is sad to see my Mother's memory failing her like this. I wonder if I am destined to suffer the same way in my old age and whether this process will have any impact on what happens.

Roaming free

As I wrote last time, this process of remembering every day that passes collapsed under the number of accumulated days at the end of April.

After a pause, I was ready to start again.

I began with a memory reboot. This is where I start on 17 December 2011 and recall the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags one day after the other. I aim to cover several months in a day, so after a couple of weeks have caught up.

This time things have been different.

I did the reboot through 2012 and 2013. Then stopped. I didn't feel like doing the same through 2014.

Instead, I continued with my short-term review only. To date, this has covered the past 6 months. I review two days per week. So as today is Thursday, I would review Wednesday and Thursday of each week.

But that felt like too much effort. I was still in need of a lighter regime. So instead of 6 months, I've kept the short-term review to the days of 2016 only.

It's been much more relaxed.

Then I became a little concerned that the images pinned to my mental calendar to remember the end of 2015 might fade as they had dropped out of regular reviews earlier than in my 6-month review approach. Rather than resuming the 6-month review, I've done a separate two-day window review of the whole of 2015.

But again, in a more relaxed way.

This is how it has gone for the past few days.

Monday: I reviewed Monday and Tuesday of every week from 4 January 2016 to a month ago, then every day of the past month.

Tuesday: I reviewed Tuesday and Wednesday of every week in 2015. Then every day of the last month.

Wednesday: I reviewed Wednesday and Thursday of every week from 6 January 2016 to a month ago, then every day of the past month.

Today (Thursday): I will review Thursday and Friday of every week in 2015. Then every day of the last month.

My idea is to follow this sequence until I have looped round to the Monday and Tuesday of every week in 2015. That will complete a memory reboot of 2015.

Then I think I'll do a reboot of 2014 in some way. Either sequentially or this two-day window technique.

My feeling and hope is that these completed years are now familiar landscapes. Perhaps I no longer need the discipline of a rigid method to ensure that I refresh the days within a certain time frame.

I can return to any of the full calendars of memory tags when I choose to roam over them.

Withdrawal and perspective

My refresh technique for reinforcing the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags was collapsing at the end of April.

So I thought it was time for a pause. I know that I can do a memory reboot, so do not fear stopping. A reboot is where over a period of a couple of weeks I run through the images on my mental calendar sequentially from 17 December 2011 when I began this process of remembering every day that passes. I cover several months a day in free mental time and can then return to whatever method I was using to refresh just a selection of images for each week or month.

I've been remembering every day that passes for over four and half years, so thought I would simply stop for a week or two.

What happened took me by surprise.

Normally - in what has become normal - I often use free mental time to revisit my mental calendar.

Without that distraction I found my mind to focus more on current events, particularly those causing me stress.

From the time before I began this process, I used various phrases to help me cope with stress. Such as "give me more strength". These are to supplant negative thoughts like, "I can't stand any more", or the taunting, self-critical thoughts that come unbidden to anyone sometimes when life is overwhelming.

I found over the several days without my refresh technique that both my coping phrases and taunting thoughts became much more prevalent. I was reminded how draining these can be.

In fact, so draining, that I returned to my mental calendars sooner than I had intended.

Here's why.

It is not for the distraction.

It is not to live in the past.

It is for perspective.

All things pass.

Alighting on the threads of the tapestry of the past few years reminded me of both good times and bad times. Reminded me of my strength. And brought home the passage of time.

Perspective.

That is the greatest gift this process gives me. It is beneficial to my stress levels and mental health.

The nature of my refresh techniques means that the images and events I recall are chosen simply due to their position on my mental calendar. Although the days selected are not random, the events and moods are. I do not tug at particular memories, but see the diversity of separate threads and so gain an overview of the rich tapestry of my life.

However, as I will explain in my next post, I have not returned to my past refresh technique. As often happens when a system collapses under the weight of the accumulated days, a new approach emerges.

The Apple MacBook Pro Easter bug

My memory tag for March 21, 2016, includes opening my MacBook Pro only to see the screen blank out immediately.

I had left it switched on, as is my habit, while travelling back from a weekend away. The battery was flat.

But it would not switch on when the charger was connected. This gave a feeble green glow, instead of the strong orange to show it was charging.

This had happened to me once before - and I suspected I had to wait several days for it to operate again. All the same, I searched the Apple and other discussion groups. It is a common problem, it seems. People suggest resetting the charge memory by holding down shift - alt - command keys (or shift - ctrl - command, I tried all variations), but this made no difference.

Leaving the charger connected overnight did not help.

The solution was to wait three days. The last time it happened the Apple store explained that residual charge would drop below a threshold and something would reset.

On the Thursday, the charger light shone bright when I connected it and it started as normal, even opening the windows for the programs I had last used. That too is in a memory tag.

My battery settings are set to go into power saving mode, but this does not seem to help. My solution is to always shut down, even when leaving the computer for a short time (I thought it had plenty of charge when this happened).

I can only see this as a bug. Why should a laptop be out of commission for three days before resetting? And surely it should be capable of operating on an external power supply.

On the discussion groups, people who have tried everything are finally advised to book an appointment at an Apple store.

But this three-day shut-down seems to be a known failing, even if it is not acknowledged. My MacBook Pro came back to life just before Easter, so it seems apt to call it the Easter bug.

If it happens to you - and your laptop starts working again after three days - post a comment.

Killing flies

Over the past few days I've been remembering days from my youth in great detail.
I have a feeling this is due to my change in approach to the completed years of my mental calendar. I have images pinned to every day of 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Each calendar is complete and unchanging - the past is set in stone, even if memories may be reinterpreted in light of later events. I'm treating these as a landscape I can walk over, finding it familiar and welcoming, rather than a challenging feat of memory to recall each separate image.

These years also have become more significant as, following the death of David Bowie, I am imagining how it would be if I had about 18 months to live. I picked a date in May 2017 - not with the intention of really dying, but imagining that is when my mental calendar ends. This has had quite a profound effect in bringing home that the years of my mental calendar are all I have - even if I don't know how many there are to come.

Trying to kill a mosquito this week, I suddenly remembered being a child on holiday with the family in a caravan and killing blue bottles that had invaded our caravan. My brother and I thought it was hilarious fun, until my mother pointed out we were killing living creatures. For many years, I would then chase flies out the window if I could, rather than swat them. Killing mosquitoes, however, is justifiable homicide (or mosquicide).

This memory is very clear, and probably comes from when I was 11, given the age of my brother in the memory and my recollection it was a particularly hot summer. I have probably not recalled this memory for many years, if at all. But it is as vivid as any of those I have consciously pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags to remember every day that passes.

This recollection triggered many other equally vivid memories of my family, some from even further back. Since then, other memories from the more distant past keep popping into my consciousness.

Of course, I would sometimes remember past memories before I began this process.

This week it seems they are coming to me without effort. This is a side effect I will continue to monitor.