One of my core uses for Obsidian is capturing memories. Well, not capturing them actually, but storing and connecting them. I use two main categories: travel memories (we travel regularly, and I regularly revisit old trips) and life memories (everything else, basically). Naturally, my travel memories are divided out by trip, usually containing both raw in-the-moment notes as well as more formal journaling. I also do something I call progressive journaling with these, whereby I continually update them with new thoughts/insights/memories.
For the life memories, I’ve done something to rayt’s “season of life” MOC idea. I have MOCs for various “seasons” of my life, as well as MOCs on important themes. So for the seasons, I have one that encompasses my life until 2nd grade when we moved across the country, another for the following two years, another for the next five years, another for high school, one for college, and then a series of them until the present. For me, those work to capture notes (both big and small memories, as well as other random bits of info i just want to archive related to that time period).
I also have theme-related MOCs that work a bit differently, but which often overlap the above items. Backlinks and MOCs are perfect for this (I’ve also tried to use tags with mixed results so far). The themes help tie together various parts of my life that transcend the “seasons.” Example MOCs include: Dating (basically, notes around many of the various non-major relationships I’ve had, including good/bad memories, personal insights about myself, and other “diary” like notes), Career, Jen (my wife), specific family and important friends, my ASU Football fandom, and other topics or major hobbies that occupied a lot of my attention over the years.
Now, this may seem like a lot, but really these mostly just act as buckets, wherein I toss a memory when I think about it. Some MOCs are sparse, some are comprised mainly from content I’ve pasted in from other places, some are aspirational—things I want to capture for posterity, but haven’t done so yet. I also asked for a “mini biography” of my youth from my Mom as birthday gift; she really enjoyed writing it from her perspective. I’ve included it in my my vault and it’s been a blast reading and integrating it into my own notes/memories (it’s remarkable how differently we remember some things!).
So far, I’m happy with the overall process of this. Just having a place to put a memory in what feels like a generally permanent system has really helped me spend more time adding details and new notes and reliving old memories and reflecting on my life. It’s been a powerful endeavor, really. And in an age where many of us spend so much time consuming content, it’s been such a pleasure to spend more of my time creating instead.