Memory Monday: Prompts to Develop Our Life Story

I’ve spent the last few months slowly compiling the documents, memorabilia and thoughts that comprise my life to date — and one of the key lessons I’ve learned is the punchline to the joke: “How do you eat an elephant?”

“One bite at a time.”

Our personal histories are the same. When you start to take elements of your life and examine them — and describe them — separately, it makes it easier to put all the pieces together in a cohesive narrative that you’ll enjoy experiencing, and your family will as well.

Although traditionally personal histories have been thought of as written, I’d encourage you to think about how you want your story to be told. Technology now affords us the opportunity to be our own radio producer, author or film director (I already tried that a bit with my slide show, but I plan to experiment with each of these mediums). But however you choose to tell your story, consider it in sections/chapters/acts the help you dissect your life into smaller parts.

To help with this, I’m compiling more than 100 chapter ideas for a personal history — each with at least 10 accompanying questions to prompt thought and provoke insight. The idea isn’t merely to answer these specific questions and call it a personal history, but these prompts should help you start to think about a certain element of your life — to recall anecdotes and emotions that shed light on who you are and what you have become.

For this first installment of Memory Monday (who doesn’t love alliteration?), I put some questions together around what you know of your first days of life — The Earliest Years:

1. What date were you born?
2. How many pounds and inches were you?
3. What city, state and country were you born in?
4. Where were you born — hospital, home, etc.?
5. What have you been told about any unusual circumstances around your birth?
6. What was the weather like on the day you were born? (This is easier than it sounds — try the Farmer’s Almanac weather history site here)
7. How was your name chosen? Does it have particular significance?
8. What did any older siblings think of your arrival?
9. What significant news events occurred on your birthday?