14. Your earliest memory.
Well as promised, I'm back and though it's only been a few days away from the computer, I feel like I owe you something grand to make up for lost time. I fear however, this is far from grand and is actually rather simple.
I was younger than two, don't ask me how much younger because I don't know. I don't remember the date or the month, I just know I was younger than two, because Derek, my little brother (who was born a week before I turned two) was not yet alive. This places us somewhere between October of 1990 and September of 1992.
The memory is more of a snapshot if you will, a little moment of my life frozen in my mind as a panoramic photograph. Nothing happens, there is no dialog, no one else is in it, it's just me own my own, observing. The moment is just there. Which is why this makes it so difficult to put words too. I wish I had a projector so I could just find the reel labeled "earliest memory" and push play for all of you to watch.
I am in a room sitting up all by myself. I'm looking out from my crib and I can see my older brother's big kid bed, it's red metal. I can see the window and the blinds are closed, soft yellow light fills the room. I can see toys scattered around and I know there is other furniture in the room, but I couldn't describe it to you in detail. I look down, I'm sitting with my baby blanket, I see the colors, red, blue, yellow.
I told you, nothing grand, I have no idea what happens next. When I shared this memory with my mom, she was almost shocked. Apparently it was at our very first house and I believe that my Aunt Wendy still lived with us.
It's amazes me that I was once that little and it's almost impossible to imagine. I was there, I was present for all of those moments, but still they aren't there in my memory and those that are, are faint. I often contemplate when we go from just existing to KNOWING we exist. I've talked about a moment similar to this before in my blog, the moment we first realize we mattered. Both moments for me, are difficult to find the words for and even though I have, they aren't things I can readily reflect on at a moments notice. It takes awhile for the memory to surface, to rise up into my consciousness and sit with me.
Even though I may not actively remember every moment, I believe that each breath and step that little girl took was a tiny stitch in the seams that hold me together and make me who I am. I know had it not been for those moments, remembered or not, my heart wouldn't be the same. Maybe we don't remember them, because we don't have too. The moment itself is like glue while it's wet, but once it dries you can't see it, or remember it, but it's still glue and it's there holding you together. My first memory is just one of the many windows in the sunflower castle that is my soul. A simple, small, beautiful window that only lets in the softest yellow light.
Kelci
