Sunday Scribblings: ...earliest memory
This week’s Sunday Scribblings prompt is “earliest memory”. What is your earliest memory?
I find it thoroughly fascinating what our brains choose to remember, especially when it comes to some of our earliest memories. I don’t remember where I learned this, but at some point in my academic history, one of my teachers explained that our memories are linked to language. Our earliest memories might occur around the ages of two or three because that is when we start to develop language skills to make sense of what is happening around us. We remember things that we can, or perhaps attempt to, make sense of.
(Is it possible then that the human brain blocks out traumatic experiences because we can’t - or more that we don’t - feel like we have the emotional capability to make sense of what happened? Since our brain chooses to not make sense of traumatic experiences, some people simply don’t remember.)
My earliest memory involved freaking my mother out. I have to say that this might be a recurring theme in my life story so far. That woman deserves an award, I tell you.
A word of warning, though, I only remember parts of this story. My parents have supplemented the details that I might have missed.
I think I was around three or four at the time, and my parents brought me to a church retreat. I want to say I was probably closer to four years old. I wasn’t even sure who’s church retreat it was. I want to say it’s my dad’s church, but I’m not quite sure. Don’t quote me on that. At that point in my life, I was really into swimming. OK. I wasn’t excited about the swimming part as I was about playing in the water. I absolutely loved playing in the water.
I’m sure my mother regretted this decision for the rest of her life. She mentioned to me in passing that I’d be able to swim because the retreat place had a big pool. I got overly excited.
If you didn’t know about this, I am impatient, and I like to get what I want as soon as possible. In full disclosure, I still struggle with those. (Y’all will need to pray for me. It’s still a struggle today.) I latched on to my mother’s promise that I was going to get to play in the pool, but I was not very happy about waiting for the church services and all the retreat programs. I wanted to swim right then and there.
So I went to the pool. On my own. Without supervision.
Apparently, I have always been independent. And stubborn. (I know, not news for anyone.)
I went and put on my swimsuit and went to the pool by myself, while the rest of the church was in a service. My mother realized I was gone and was trying to find where I was. She looked everywhere, but couldn’t find me. Until she looked out the window of the building. The window happened to look out the pool. And there I was, playing in the water. By myself.
I wasn’t sure what particular consequences I was awarded due to my actions. I have flashes of my mom raising her voice in the car as she got me into dry clothes. I have blocked that part out of my memory. I'm pretty sure I ended up being able to go play in the water with the other kids, but the details of my consequences were quite fuzzy.
I’m not sure why my brain latched on to that specific memory. Maybe it was the flash of independence. Maybe it was the stubbornness. Maybe it was humanity projecting itself at such an early age. What does my earliest memory say about me?
What is your earliest memory and what do you think that says about you?
June 28, 2020
