I have a memory that haunts me.

It’s from when I was a child.  One morning after a particularly large snow storm my brother, my sister and I went out to play in the snow.

My sister got out her Strawberry Shortcake sled and began trying to sled around our largely flat yard.  She was very young and was undeterred by failure.

My brother, always serious yet productive, made several snowmen.  Like a sort of family of them.

I, odd and obsessive as always, began my usual hunt for large icicles.  I found a kingly specimen coming out of a rain gutter!

Eventually, my father came out with a camera.  He took pictures of his children playing in this idyllic New England winter scene.

Here’s where the trouble began.  First there was the picture of my cute little sister who was now being pulled on her sled by her friend from down the street.  Then came my brother’s snowmen.  By this point I was helping him attach good stick arms we had found in the woods across the street.  Finally it was time to take a picture of the weird child’s icicle collection.

My brother, ever the showman said, “Take a picture of me karate chopping them!”

“NO.” I screamed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just pretend.”  he said to me.

“Ok” I said.

He didn’t pretend.  With all the enthusiasm of a young boy he broke them.

He screamed that it was an accident.  I screamed that it wasn’t.  I was devastated.  In my anger I pushed over all his snowmen.  He had spent a long time building them and I had even helped but a few seconds of anger and I had destroyed everything.

At that point we were punished and sent inside.

While Bob Ross played on PBS in the background, we stood at a window and watched our sister play with her friend while a day in a winter wonderland passed us by.

After we said our “sorries” and had some cocoa, we were allowed to go outside once again.

As soon as we went outside my brother went looking for icicles for me.  I went to rebuild some snowmen for him.

There were no more icicles to be found and the snow had changed.  No longer was it perfect “packin” snow.  Making snowmen was impossible.

As I knelt in the snow, with tears on my face, trying to mold slush into a happy snow family, I felt a feeling that haunts me to this day.  That feeling crushed me and I’d bet my brother felt something like it too because we both, simultaneously, went to the back yard and began taking turns pulling my sister around on her tiny sled while she squealed in delight.

I didn’t know then but I know now that that was my first taste of the destructive nature of anger.  The remorse and shame of regretted actions.

This memory haunts me.  Every time I see multiple snowmen, every time I see “kingly” icicles, this memory shows up to ruin me.

Or, at least, it used to.  It doesn’t anymore.  What changed?

Notebooking.

Our recent article about “Questions to ask yourself while Notebooking” has a couple points that I wrote because of this memory.  Specifically, “How would you like to remember this experience?” and “Summarize this memory in a way that puts it to rest.”

The power these two writing prompts have over your happiness cannot be understated.  I used to have a memory that made me sad when I ought to be happy.  Now I have a memory that reminds me of the terrible permanence and blinding momentum of actions taken in anger.

When I asked myself, “How would I like to remember this experience?” I had simply one word – happy.  It didn’t take me long after writing about this experience to realize that it had a happy ending.  My brother and I dragging my sister’s sled around our backyard while she delightedly screamed.  Then why did it bother me so much?  I believe it’s because when I think of this memory I can only focus on my angry mistake.  If there’s one thing Mr. Rogers taught me about mistakes it’s that we should learn from them.  So, what should I learn from this mistake?  That actions, once done, cannot be taken back.  They are permanent.

Now onto the last question (really more of a prompt, I suppose), “Summarize this memory in a way that puts it to rest.”  For me, I think the best way to put this to rest is to turn it into a silent promise.  A promise to try to avoid actions out of anger.  A promise to think of how much I care for people before I do or say something I’ll regret.  There are no take backs.

Now when I see these familiar winter scenes I’m not sad.  I’m reminded to love my loved ones and to cherish the time and memories made together.

Everyone has bad memories but, trust me on this dear reader, Notebooking can make some bad memories turn good!

And that’s powerful!