744 Notes and Counting

A Journey Through Girlhood as Told by My Notes App

The consistent jokes I see online about stumbling across an emotionally charged rant in your

notes whilst just trying to look for your shopping list proves that we’re all the same. I’ve even

said to my parents, if I die before you, PLEASE do not open my notes app. But alas, here I

am exposing my very own personal timeline and sort-of-diary. I truly believe the notes app

can reveal more about a person than their birth chart. It’s an intimate thing, and while this

journey through my notes app isn’t an attempt to be intimate, it’s certainly entertaining. 

I have 744 notes and counting. Well, I tell a lie, even me just writing this idea down bumped

the total to a whopping 745 -- what a milestone! But what could possibly be contained in this

one seemingly simple app? There’s no one answer, it is literally the word ‘everything’.

So, we begin back in 2019, my 14-year-old self at the peak of hormonal turmoil and painful

self-discovery. There, I decide to begin a series entitled ‘Deep Diaries’, the only two entries

being locked. Of course I was embarrassed, they were all about my first boyfriend and the

fact I’d kissed him in a tree and how that filled my younger self with immense butterflies and

how everyone in my friendship group now had boyfriends. This was also the year I decided

to create a bucket list, which said very profound things such as ‘Go outside of Europe’ and

‘Have a Summer picnic at night’ -- I can now say I have since completed both of these. 

My favourite 2019 excerpt: ‘Season 3 of Stranger Things came out. I finished it. Then cried.

Hopper DIES! But I really don’t think he’s dead’. Simpler times.

Then 2020 is not this straightforward, rather a mish-Kebab Kmash of chaotic lockdown thoughts, a

refined ‘coming out’ text to send to a friend merged between multiple locked ‘manifestations.’

I was that bored I even began writing songs, none of which have seen the light of day. Then I

finally left the house, and every encounter became worthy of writing down, turned into

something much more romantic than it really was.

My favourite 2020 excerpt: ‘We grabbed chips from Kebab King and sat outside a funeral

plan shop making stupid tik toks. I don’t think I stopped laughing once really. I will never

forget that day.’ And to be honest, I didn’t because of this very note.

2021, my first serious relationship. You can only imagine the rafts of rehearsed, refined and

edited texts, as if I’d only just become self-aware and needed everything I said to be exactly

what I meant. Practiced apologies, lists of burning questions, love letters, you name it. Slotted

between these new and strange feelings were glimpses of me growing up. I’d write my

thoughts on films, a list of my favourite songs of that year, carefully curated lists of what

homework to do in the week. 

My favourite 2021 excerpt: ‘If I had one superpower rn it would be to crawl through the

screen and give you a big hug -- as said by Fred from Big Hero 6’. Maybe I hadn’t grown up

that much.

2022 is not so different, except I had my first breakup, so that’s what this creative energy

was channelled into. Whilst in a deep state of anger, I was also attempting to brainstorm my

A-Level short film and EPQ. The level of poems ramp up within the mixture of academic

stress, creating a clash that’s funny to look at on the app’s list format. 

My favourite 2022 excerpt: ‘Medium grilled chicken pitta with halloumi. Peri salted chips.

Corn on the cob. Water’. Some things never change. 

Then 2023 gets a bit embarrassing. It’s an entire list of evidence of how a three-month

situationship can drive you to insanity. Hindsight is a great thing and now I see why my

friends were right. In the September, when I head to Uni, this may be the first rare occasion

where my notes app sees numbers as I’m introduced to the world of budgeting. There are

still a few poems in there which is nice. I tried spoken word once, and the material is wedged

between important Uni links and contact numbers.

My favourite 2023 excerpt: ‘btw please let me know if you find my earrings’. I never got them

back. They were my favourite pair.

2024 continues my adult journey of money handling and food shopping. This perfectly

accompanies my email drafts and lists of ‘goals’ I had to complete for my part-time marketing

job at the time, such as posting on LinkedIn once a month. But that year I went to Madeira

and could leave all that behind for a week, falling in love with the place and indulging in this

feeling privately through my fingertips. 

My favourite 2024 excerpt: ‘Mini shopping list: butter, milk, cheese, courgette.’ Just the

essentials, really.

And that brings us to now. Accidentally religiously using this app since 2019 has told me a lot

about myself: what was REALLY on my mind, what was important enough to write about,

how I’ve got better at budgeting and meal prepping. It has reminded me of the mistakes I’d

made over the years that I felt needed rehearsed apologies, who I cared enough for to

practically beg them to stay in my life, what I found worthy enough to make poetic, and how

my chosen email sign-off has shifted with maturity. I hate to admit that it’s gone rather boring

nowadays. Schedules, plans, reminders, to-do lists. 

What this journey has told me is maybe I should pick up that pen and paper more often

instead of clogging up my phone and making my finger ache just to scroll to what I need. But

more importantly, it’s told me that I should tap back into that part of myself that was giddy

about a stupid boy in 2019, making something romantic of a tree or cherishing eating chips

on the street. Not all the notes have to be serious just because I’ve aged, and not all my

writing has to be serious just because I’ve moved into adulthood. I should write more funny

thoughts down that only I’d understand, inside jokes with myself. And I write just that in my

notes app right now, as a reminder.

Words by Amelia Ritchie, she/her