Reflecting on the past – Bloganuary day 3

Day 3 of Bloganuary and we’re still going strong! Today’s prompt is : What is the earliest memory you have?

I’ve always thought about this as my family is really into photos. I have a very vivid memory of eating a chocolate cake as a child for my 1st birthday. My mom always claimed there was no way I remembered that far back and that I must have seen a picture of that to remember it. In the 50+ photo albums my mom had from my sister and my childhood, I have never found a photo of this, so is this my true memory?

I’ve always been fascinated by the way our brains work and how memories can be created by external factors. With so much access to pictures and social media, it’s easy to remember many things and even trick your memory into remembering things you may have forgotten. I definitely have lots of memories of my childhood from zoo trips with my family to family friend vacations to Ottawa listening to the mamma Mia soundtrack on repeat. I also have loads of photos to look back on and remember the things my memory decided there was no space for. As I get older I am grateful for all the photos and videos and stories I have, and am also amazed at the memories I’ve stored in my brain. Half of the time I can’t remember dates or what I had for breakfast, but the meaningful moments of making up full length songs with my sister and playing pranks on the boys in elementary school are clear as day.

I’m curious to know if anyone else has vivid memories of their childhood and if they’ve ever questioned if this was true or not? If you are reading this, what is your earliest memory? Or at least the age of your earliest memory?

This may have not been the deepest blog post, I’m sure I could have expanded on psychology or the science of memories, but this prompt sent me through memory lane and i thought I’d keep it just that. It really was a wonderful way to spend a rainy day 🙂