I'm sorry, I have no advice to give however I can relate. I've forgotten passphrases to a lot of things. I once locked myself out of a set of backups I needed

I'm sorry, I have no advice to give however I can relate. I've forgotten passphrases to a lot of things. I once locked myself out of a set of backups I needed which meant a great deal to me. Photos that can never be restored, writings, etc. After that event I kicked myself hard for a while for not testing my backups on a regular basis which would have reminded me that my backups were encrypted and I should've maybe written down the phrase somewhere safe. Time passed and I got over it but the lesson learned changed. Testing backups is still important but I started questioning why I was encrypting my backups at all. Was I really worried someone would find some old pictures and things I wrote a decade ago? Not really. It would be unlikely for someone to break into my home and then my safe and take my hard drive with backup data on it. Even if that happened, I don't think my first thought would have been "oh no, that thief can see my old photos now". Being honest with myself, I realized I was encrypting because it was cool and techie to do so. I guess what I'm saying is that encryption is a damn powerful tool. So powerful that it could even reject the owner at some point. I still use encryption but now I make choices about what I encrypt. Would I prefer greater accessibility or security? For most things, accessibility wins out so I'm very selective about what gets encrypted and I'd say everything I encrypt now can be easily replaced but compromising the data would be either dangerous or embarrassing. Again, sorry I don't have a real answer. Generally when something is "on the tip of your tongue", relaxing and moving onto something else is the best way to dislodge it. Other than that, I really don't know.