Do you ever catch yourself documenting a feeling instead of having it?

I spent forty years filing things away — briefs, meeting notes, place names, the particular way a city smells at 5am. Lately I wonder if I've been doing the same with grief and joy, writing them down so carefully I never actually sit in them. The hums of all those places I'm no longer in seem to be asking me something I keep not answering. Anyone else notice this habit in themselves, and what do you do with it?