I often like to ask people what their first memory is and how old they were when the event happened. For me, it is getting my “big girl” bed and having my new puppy sleep beside the bed in the box in which our new coffee table had come. The next morning I woke to find the puppy eating its waste. I was two and a half.
It has come to my attention in asking this, that most first memories, and many other memories besides, are results of stress or trauma. I found it exceedingly gross that my puppy was eating poop and then wanted to lick me when I held him. Many of my memories from very early childhood carry similar levels of stress.
I was also amazed at how many people can’t remember anything, except as stories passed along from relatives, until they reach school age. Still, the school age memories carry some stressor.
So, what is your first memory and how old were you? Are you sure your memory comes from your own head or does it come from the stories others have told you? How much of your own life can you chronicle from your own recollection?
I think one of my first clear memories that I'm sure isn't made up or someone else's story was when my mother and I rode a Greyhound from Norfolk all the way to Oakland California when I was about 5-6. I remember there was a kind gentleman on the bus that would hang out with me when my ma needed to nap. And I remember the blue flowery plastic lunch bag that my mom had packed food for us in. And to this day I can still remember the taste of the fried chicken she brought. And 33 years later she still has that bag.
ReplyDeleteThe only shadowy memory I have before that age was of being in my crib at night and being frightened of this plastic glow worm toy that was in the crib with me. But as I said... that's somewhat of a shadowy memory.