Moments you remember

[Melooon]

Sometimes there are moments that you just remember perfectly clearly in your mind - maybe there is a reason, maybe theres no reason at all. What are some moments you remember, and can you describe what you remember most about them (the light, a sound, a smell, the look on someones face etc)

I remember the swing at my first school when I was 3; I remember the ground was red dirt and worn away from feet and there was an obstacle like a pond near it; I was talking to a friend - I think it was time for us to go inside, but I wanted to stay there.

[Memory]

I used to wonder if the memories that really stick with us despite seeming mundane would somehow be important at some point in our lives, but I don't really believe in that sort of fate anymore.

One of my earliest, clearest memories is of standing on the driveway of the first house I lived in with my older sister on her bike and our cat Mittens walking around our legs. It was spring or summer, and I was definitely younger than 7 because that's when we moved, but I don't know any more about the time frame than that.

Mittens was black and white. My sister's bike was green and a bit scratched up, but was later painted black with red stripes when she grew out of it and it was passed down to me.

[WingsOfImagination]

When I was around 8-9 years old boy I had to suddenly switch to a different elementary school due to various reasons. Back then as a kid, I felt very angry and sad about the unwanted moving and I missed much my old school and friends.

In my stubborn mind, I had decided to myself that I will purposely avoid any sort of involvement with my classmates, up until I finally convince my parents to bring me back to my old school. As a result, I used to avoid everyone and sit alone around the school every time during breaks, something which I ended up doing for quite a long time. Probably months.

One moment which I remember in particular, was one of the days when it was dark and cloudy during fall or winter season. I was sitting up on the stairs leading to the street exit while facing the rocky playground where the other kids were playing soccer, and I was looking at a bunch of dead leaves sprawling and moving around the ground and up the air by the force of the wind. I remember, very clearly, imagining myself being able to control the wind with the power of my mind and carrying those dead leaves wherever I want them to go. When the school bell rang, I slowly stopped what I was doing and stood up to go back to class, and I suddenly felt this emptiness feeling crawling in my body, the most lonely I've ever been.

If there's anything I would describe as a "core memory" for me, it's quite likely to be this one. For whatever reason it is, it's a moment I'll probably remember for my entire life. Maybe due to this memory the cold days always feel like a mix of sweet hopefulness and biting sadness to me. But I love dark windy days regardless...or maybe because.

[bugholder's epiphany]

Think the most clear memory I have-- also doubling as my oldest memory in general, is when I first played Super Mario Sunshine on the Nintendo Gamecube. I genuinely remember being in my bedroom, looking around in awe and staring down at the disc for the game before my parents helped me put it in the Gamecube, and then me actually playing the game.

I don't know how well I did at the game, I imagine I absolutely sucked at it, but that memory is one of those things I'll always remember.

[Commodorn]

Well, here's uh.. two of them:

-----

In front of my old childhood home on a clear day, I was standing near the sun-bleached road and looking out into another street that was across from us and at the objects that surrounded it. Houses. Telephone poles. The neighbor's basketball hoop.. small, but near the center of my vision. I looked into the blue sky. I remembered some term that was or was similar to "Hawk-eyed" and what it meant before comparing it to how detailed and crisp my vision was. 'It won't always be this way', something in my mind told me. Strange.. my vision started to get blurry when I was around 8, so I must've been younger.

-----

I was sitting at one of the tables at math class in elementary school. I was chosen to answer a math problem I didn't already have an answer to, so I started solving it out loud for the teacher with a "I know that [blank], so that means that [blank]" kind of process before the girl in my class with blonde hair, a light blue shirt, and a very strong Southern-American accent bluntly told me to "Shut my pie hole". Despite imagining a literal image of a pie and being confused by what a "pie hole" was even supposed to be, I felt mildly put down. After quietly putting together some of the information I already knew, I think I gathered that it could've been some variation of "shut up"..

-----

[Memory]

In elementary school I was sitting on a swing set, not swinging. During this aftercare thing for kids whose parents worked late. Everything was lit up in that gold/red light that only happens just before the sun sets. There was a girl in my class I didn’t know particularly well standing to my right. She was telling me about how her mom was getting out of prison, she was really happy about it.

The weird thing is I know I never would have remembered that moment, or that girl, if it wasn’t for the fact that a few days later she and her mom were found dead in the back seat of her moms car. The engine had been left running and they suffocated. Our teacher told us she died painlessly, the news said she spent the last few hours of her life desperately trying to call her dad and leaving crying voice messages.

The other thing that stuck in my mind was the school assembly about her. Our teacher told us to say either one word or a sentence that described her on stage. I was terrified of public speaking so I did one word. This wasn’t explained to the audience though, and after a few kids said full sentences I got up and said “compassionate” and walked off and the whole audience of parents and students laughed at me.

I think when you’re a kid there’s a lot you can’t process yet so you’re brain puts on the on the shelf for adult you to sort out.

[Memory]

I was in nursery, and we'd often have these outside "picnic" lunch times where we'd take our lunchbox and sit in this big inset stone circle to eat together on a sunny day. It was once of those days. I grabbed my lunch box, followed the teachers, and immediately started eating! Although, half of my lunch was new, as in I didn't remember my mom ever giving me those specific snacks (I forgot which ones but just different brands to what I was used to) but I decided to eat it anyway. It was a sunny day, and I loved sitting in the circle with everyone!

Only, half way through eating a teacher came up to me and told me I had the wrong lunchbox. There was another girl in the class, I didn't recognise her, who had the exact same lunchbox design as me and we just got switched! For some reason, though nobody raised their voice at me or told me off (quite the opposite, it was just a silly mistake in their eyes), I remember crying. I think I thought I was in trouble for not only "stealing" someone elses lunchbox, but also because I had ate half the girls lunch! I didn't mind so much that the other girl had ate mine, I hoped she'd enjoyed it. But I was downright inconsolable at the state of affairs, and so the nursery staff had to call my mom.

My mom brought me some more lunch, and I think she even brought some for the other girl whose lunch I ate. Mom spent lunch time with me and I think she just took me home afterwards due to how upset I was. I was just so focused on not getting in trouble... I wonder why I took it so badly! 

[debleb]

i remember once using my outie belly button as a little diving board for a finger person while my mum told me i was getting surgery on my belly button 

[PurpleHello98]

I remember the first day I ever had at school. Beyond some cousins, with whom I'm only now starting to get close---besides two, with whom I was close for a while in my youth---I never really talked that much to other kids as a little child, so preschool was my first proper time interacting with other kids. My preschool---a French immersion school---shared a building with a local church, and used a couple of its classrooms on the weekday morning and afternoons, and I remember my mother holding my hand as she walked me through this dark hallway to the classroom. As I stood at the threshold, we were standing there, looking in at the children playing in different areas of the room---I seem to recall the little "tapis"---I guess in English it would be a rug, though it had the alphabet and all on it and it was oval shaped---on which we sat in a little circle was on the left, close to the door, and some children would've been playing there and in other parts of the room, though I'm not sure of the exact accuracy of my recollection of the room's layout. Anyways, I raised my fist to cough into it (I have a benign cough that just happens, and did even moreso back then) and my teacher walked over and said "no, no, no, we don't cough like this, [she mimed coughing into her fist] we cough like this. [she mimed coughing into her elbow]" And thus began my still-ongoing educational career!

-----

I remember once, I was about the same age, give or take a year, and I was at my Nan and Grandad's house, and somehow wandered into the kitchen. Now, on this side of the family, at family events we always drink out of red (or purple, green, etc.) solo cups, and I got a few and filled them with differing levels of water and sat them on the edge of the kitchen island. I then acquired a spoon and set to try and play them like a musical instrument, but ere I had had a long time to demonstrate my entirely unparalleled musical proficiency on the plastic cup, that oft-employed symphonic instrument, my uncle came in and chased me around and scolded me. And thus ended my chances at joining an orchestra.

[brisray]

I've got memories of all sorts of things. Some things are a bit out of order, but my memory has always been like that. Some things I remember could have happened anytime between around 1990 and last week.

Like others, my earliest clear memories are from nursery school which would have been around 1961. I remember my mum walking me to the nursery one day and we got caught in a hail storm. I cried my eyes out because the hail was hurting my bare legs.

I can remember the embroidery pattern on our blankets for our afternoon sleep. The first year mine was a bucket and spade, the next year it was a little sail boat. Light blue blankets with darker blue embroidery for the boys, pink blankets with red embroidery for the girls. I think I remember those things because how it got drilled into us to use our own blankets. Some kids where not well looked after at home and nits sometimes got to be a problem. We all ended up with them one time or another.

It's also why I remember the taste of cod liver oil and the 1/3 pints of milk. We all got a spoonful of the oil and a bottle of milk every day because most of our families were not well off and some couldn't afford to eat properly and the oil has loads of vitamins in it. I can almost taste it sometimes and it still makes me go "ugh."

[Còbra!]

I remember years ago when we went to Ireland to visit my great grandmother, they had a computer and a bunch of floppy discs in one of those storage caddies. I remember going through them and writing various things, being completely computer illiterate back then, I did so with the logic that if I write what I want on the disks, the data will magically appear on it. I remember doing the same with a VHS blank back home as well.

Turns out, shocklingly, this didn’t work, and only caused the grown ups to be very angry at me.

There was also a roadworks set I remember getting at Toys R Us on my birthday one summer, and seeing the 0-3 Sad Onions sign that was so common in the British Isles on the bottom of the box, and having no idea what it meant back then, and remember thinking something along the lines of “This toy makes people sad?”

To be honest… I still don’t know what the hell it’s supposed to mean… my guess is it means you can’t give it to children under 3?

[Memory]

I have so many memories from my early childhood - so many clear, fragments floating around the nebulous abstract reaches of my mind... aswell as remembering scenes, I also remember how it felt to perceive reality at that age too and it always fascinates me to think back to it and compare it to how I comprehend things now.

For example I have all these memories of being under 4 and thinking in colors, shapes and sensations. I remember when I felt happy I'd think in green shapes rather than words. I remember seeing green triangles a lot, and strange curvy rainbow colored waves. If I felt upset I'd see spiky explosions of red and black. It is really trippy to think back on.

But anyway visual memories are easier to articulate...

One clear memory I have is of seeing my little hand as I was being pushed along in a baby stroller, my hand was holding a red leash which was connected to a small Yorkshire terrier that was bounding along my buggy. I could see the grass and sidewalk as my granma pushed me along. I remember feeling really excited to be holding the leash, and I stared up at the sun till I couldn't see anything but whiteness... that is where the memory fades out.

Another memory I have is of crawling around on all fours around my old living room, playing with Thundercat and Ghostbuster action figures and nonsensically gibbering to myself. I don't know if I was actually speaking words, but I remember smelling my mom ironing (as weird as that sounds) and looking up at the ironing board which seemed like a huge building. I remember her scooping me up and putting me on the sofa, and me jumping up and down on it like it was some huge trampoline.

I remember my first ever day in kindergarten, the kid who was nice to me, the fact I fell over in the playground and scraped my knee (I still have the scar) and I cried because I was bleeding so much. I remember being given a juicebox by a teacher. I remember not being able to find my coat on the coatrack and panicking. (I have autism spectrum disorder so things like that were incredibly traumatic for me even back then).

I have very fragmented memories of seeing Roger Rabbit at the movie theatre with my dad... 

Memories are so strange because I often wonder how I can even trust that they even happened or if it's all just dreams within my mind.

[Kalka]

A power outage that happened at night when I was young. I looked through the window and got wide eyes seeing the full starry sky for he first time of my life. I clearly remember the natural glow of the sky, the stars, a lot of adults going outside and whispering that it was beautiful. I looked in awe and thought that if each star is a sun, there was no way we'd be alone in this universe. Maybe it's gas jellyfishes, mybe it's aquatic algae-eating blobs but it's still life.

I will never forget that vision and the dreams that followed.

[_ghost_]

My mom worked the night shift when I was a kid. She did that specifically so she could be home with me during the day while my dad was at work and my older siblings were at school. I don't think I was very aware of that being the reason, though, just that early in the morning my dad would have me up and dressed and I would be sitting in the living room when my mom came home, and she would sometimes bring me a specific pastry from a fast food place near our house. I don't know that they even still sell those. Some days we would run errands together also, and she would usually get me a treat of some kind when we did that, too. We didn't do this as much once I started school. I think the reason I remember it so clearly is because it was a routine thing; she wouldn't do this everyday, but a lot.

I'm not super close with my mom anymore and I usually think of my dad as the one who was there for a lot of the important stuff (school competitions, helping me move out of my dorm at the end of my first year of college, things like that), but when I was really little, my mom was the one who was around and who went out of her way to do special things like that.

[milo]

I have this half memory in my head that comes to me sometimes. It seems obscured, like I can tell certain things about it, but not exactly what it is.

It's see through and blue. My sister and I got one at the same time, hers was red. It's a little plastic thing, maybe in the shape of an animal. There are little bubbles inside from the plastic injection molding when it was made.

When it was given to me, it was really important and meant a lot, even though it was just a small plastic thing. There are feelings of excitement at a new thing but also sadness attached to this memory, and the sense that maybe these little plastic things were given to my sister and I to cheer us up. My parents used to fight a lot when we were little and those sorts of feelings are attached to this memory too.

I can vividly picture the little bubbles inside a blue plastic something, but I can't for the life of me remember what that something was. But sometimes I think of those little blue bubbles and all the mixed feelings they conjure up.