august 17.

I've downloaded Timehop, allowing the alerts to greet me as soon as I unlock my phone. I've enabled Facebook's "On This Day," marking the notifications unread until I've scrolled through each memory. I start most days this way: lying in bed after my alarm goes off, scrolling through memory lane. Last year, I Instagrammed the beautiful waterfalls I hiked past while on retreat for my new job. Three years ago, I tweeted about being one week away from hopping on a plane to India. Seven years ago, my best high school friend wrote on my wall to tell me that she would always always always be my friend.

These snippets of the past are kind of like the songs that bring you back to that one night, that one feeling, that one moment in time. But these snippets are always the good stuff -- they're the songs you danced to at that sleepover, the one that played during that kiss, and the one you belted at karaoke. I see the picture of the waterfall and get the same excited butterflies in my stomach that I had as a three-day-old employee. I see the tweet and physically ache for Bangalore and the feeling of hopping on an international flight with my travel pack. I see the post from my friend and immediately screen shot it to her with a few heart emojis, grateful that her promise is still true. These are such good moments.

But what about the rest?

What about the nitty gritty stuff of our hearts and guts that isn't recorded on social media? What about the just-as-real (and maybe even-more-real) stuff of our lives that was around before social media? Timehop and Facebook leave out the stuff that reminds us of the loneliness or the recent breakup or the friendship drama. They don't play the song that we looped on repeat when we said goodbye for the last time, or the one that we had to avoid for awhile, or the one that has always made us tear up a bit. There aren't many Instagrams or tweets that bring up hard stuff, or under-the-surface stuff. This is, of course, by our own choosing -- we purposefully record and remember the butterflies over the breakups, the excitement over the dread, the "life is great" over the "life is great but also really complicated." But still, we feel the real stuff's absence; it's the missing part of our perfectly crafted and curated scroll down memory lane each day.

I needed to look up a date and a memory for an essay-in-progress in an old journal tonight and found that real stuff staring at me from the pages of my bright orange, tulip-covered journal from the summer of 2005. I flipped through pages and found unsent love letters to multiple boys, printed transcripts of AOL Instant Message conversations with those same boys, and my insights into friendship and relationships and school. I found today's date.

August 17, 2005: "I'm ready for school to start. Pumped. I love rain. Last night we went to bed at 5! Time for me to roll out = now (11:22)!"

I read the full entry, giggling alone in my apartment and wondering why I ever thought I should use the phrase "roll out," even if it was just for my eyes only. I returned the journal to its box and pulled out my bright pink, daisy-covered one from the summer of 2006.

August 17, 2006: "He was like 'Where have you been?' and I said 'around.' He was like 'around, huh?' and I said 'Yeah I've sent you a few texts the past few days' and he goes 'yeah' and some other stuff. He said he'd try to call me sometime. I think it was fate."

First, I laughed. (Fate? Really?) And then I kept searching through the pages, unearthing the multicolored hearts and flipping open the elephant with the balloon and holding the engraved feathers, finding the under-the-surface words and feelings from each August 17, the stuff and stories that my Timehop and Facebook wouldn't bring up each year.

August 17, 2008: "I went to a High School Musical 2 party! It was super fun even though I didn't know everyone there very well!"

August 17, 2012: "I explained that I couldn't let him take me out to dinner because I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship and am going away. In other words, this is how my heart feels: UGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

August 17, 2014: "How on earth will I know if this is the right path for me? Don't I just need to take one step and then see how that goes? What if I change my mind? Then I do. Dreams and plans and timelines can change. They always do."

As I read each entry, I moved past the picture-perfect parts and into the "life is great but also really complicated" ones. There wasn't a filter or spellcheck or missing snippets in this memory lane. It was all there, messy handwriting and weird analogies and rambling monologues and all. 

And now, this one's there too.

August 17, 2015: I had already Instagrammed my three closest gals from our 7 am breakfast date today. I took my first coffee art photo and started writing my "I just started drinking coffee" Instagram post in my head. I snapped a few pictures of my students, capturing the silly icebreakers and the birthday celebrations and the sacred conversations. But there is more to this August 17 than these good, post-worthy snippets. There was the walk home from work -- to a home I've been living in for over a year now, to a bed which is finally unlofted after an epic battle with the mattress and frame. There was the writing about Wicked and watching Ross and Rachel and their new baby on Friends and, now, the reliving of so many August 17s. Good and hard, big and little, and under-the-surface pieces that make up this day.

According to Timehop and Facebook, August 17 has not been a special day in the history of my life. Except that it is. Of course it is. Because life -- good, bad, and real -- happened then and is happening now. August 17 was fun in 2008 and heartbreaking in 2012 and insightful in 2014. And now, in 2015, it's an ode to my journaling, or to anyone's journaling, or to creating an outlet to remember the under-the-surface, "life is great but also really complicated" stuff somehow. It's also a reminder that memories exist outside of those that social media reminds us of, that the unseen and undocumented snippets matter just as much -- if not more -- than those that show up on our screens. And it is a plea to my future self, who will see this on August 17, 2016: sit with and learn from and let all the snippets of your life, from August 17 and all the other days, show up beyond your screen.

Let them live in your heart and guts.