Ever remember something from your childhood (or last week) and fantisize about it in your head until it is a mere skeleton of the real deal? Well, I did that today… with a Blizzard. Not exactly from my childhood, but all I could think about was a Blizzard. I don’t eat carbs during the week, so when I think about the weekend’s free pass, I usually pick something to obsess about and then have that thing. This weekend that item was a Blizzard. Let’s just say it will (should) be a LONG while before I go fantisizing about Blizzards again!
But that got me to thinking… how many memories do we have from childhood that, were we to go back, aren’t even remotely accurate anymore. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Many things that we remember from our youth are things that make us smile when we’re down, or have shaped who we are. Has the shape of who we are been made upon a myth is what I want to know.
I, like most people I think, have a great tendancy to erase AAAALLLL the nasty bad things from my mind. I do it a bit faster than most and can’t remember what the argument yesterday was from…but many people have a pretty glossy recollection I think. (obviously there are those that have had instances that are too horrible to gloss over… that’s not what I’m talking about). An example? I have a VIVID memory of one Christmas with my sister when we were around 14 or 15 and we layed in front of the fireplace in our old house one Christmas Eve (it may not have actually be Christmas Eve, but in my mind it was…. SEE!). Anyway, we both remember and often bring up laying in front of the fireplace having quiet time and really relaxing and enjoying eachother’s company and the season. I distinctly think that this has likely been glossed over and made to be a ‘better’ memory than it was. Not because it wasn’t a good memory or a lovely time. But because things get foggy, or blurry, or tainted with our desires at the time or feelings when reliving the memory. I know that both of us think about this time almost every Christmas when we’re stressed to the max with work, family, presents, and the general mayhem of the season. It was a time that we remember to be calm and without stress. Does it matter whether that’s an accurate picture of the event? I’m not sure.
What I do know is that there ARE many things out there that aren’t exactly accurate in our minds and I don’t know if that’s such a tragedy. It means that you can take what you need from a memory or experience and leave the detritus. That’s how I see it anyway. Maybe someone else sees it as dramatizing something fictional and not keeping a firm hold on reality.
I also know that when you think of something like a Blizzard, or 5cent candy or anything of that nature, it’s best to take your ‘memory’ with a grain of salt!
~P’Cess
