The Tradition That Sparked a New Self Told Feature
Birthdays in our home are less about presents and more about doing something
together. We’ll explore a new neighborhood, try a restaurant we’ve never heard of,
get out on the water, or attempt a puzzle game that makes us question our
intelligence. And for my daughter’s birthday, we almost always hit the trifecta: a
ferry ride to a nearby town… which also happens to have an escape room. After all,
nothing says “Happy Birthday” like locking your family in a room and trying to
escape in under 60 minutes.
A Tradition of Stories — and Many Versions of Them
As is our tradition, we use the car ride to share stories about birthdays past. Not
just the three of us — the whole extended cast joins in. My daughter’s aunt, uncle, and cousins call to contribute their memories from the years when our families celebrated together. On my birthday, my mom phones in to share stories about my childhood birthdays — though about half of those stories are actually about my
sister. We don’t correct her but rather turn it into a game where my wife and daughter try to guess which child’s birthday my mother is remembering.
My wife might remember wrestling my daughter and her cousins into one place long enough to get a photo — a tradition we’ve kept since the year my daughter was born, resulting in a decade-long series of pictures featuring varying levels of cooperation.
My daughter’s aunt and uncle often remember what phase she was in that year, since they always try to find the perfect birthday gift.
And even my mother, who wasn’t physically there, will contribute details she’s pieced together from whatever my daughter told her at the time.
In the space of one conversation, we get five versions of the same birthday. Each is true in its own way. Each adds something. And this layered storytelling — these multiple angles on the same moment — is what gave me the idea for a new Self Told feature.
One Memory, Many Voices
Sometimes I’ll intentionally start the chain. I’ll record a story about a shared memory and then send it to the family with a request to “add to the story.” Other times the add-ons happen spontaneously. Someone hears a story and decides to set the record straight: “That’s not how I remember it,” or “You forgot the most important part.”
I wanted Self Told to reflect the reality of family history: no story exists in isolation.
Every memory has echoes. Every experience has witnesses. Everyone remembers something different.
That’s why we built the More to This Story feature.
When someone adds to a story, they aren’t editing or extending the original recording. They’re creating their own separate story — their perspective, their memory — and Self Told groups all of those recordings together into a playlist.
The original story sits at the top, and each added story becomes a new chapter. You can listen to them one after another and hear an event unfold from multiple viewpoints.
Preserving Our Birthday Traditions — With a Twist
This September, we made a small enhancement to our tradition of recounting
birthdays past. Instead of just telling the stories during the drive, we also record them in Self Told. The retellings still happen — they’re too fun to give up — but now the memories get saved, too.
The Magic of Hearing Every Perspective
Our memories aren’t meant to be recorded in isolation. They’re meant to be shared, expanded, challenged, teased apart, and told again from different angles. That’s how a story turns into something bigger — a collective memory, a shared inheritance.
So as we wrap up another birthday month, I’m grateful for our traditions — and
even more grateful that we now have a way to preserve not just the stories
themselves, but the many voices that make those stories whole.
