Memory Half Full

I distinctly remember the first day of kindergarten, getting introduced to all the new faces, learning where the monkey bars were, seeing all the bigger kids in the halls and being intimidated. I wore a brand new striped shirt with khaki pants rolled up into a cuff at home by my mom just that morning. The cuff kept rolling out so I would slide it back up periodically. I remember spending more time bending over than anything else that day, trying to keep from tripping over my pants and making a spectacle of myself. Then there were all the new kids I met on that first day. There was Robert, and Joe, and Loren, and Kareema, and Rita, and Donna. They shared the same table with me in lunch that day, in a crowded cafeteria where all the big kids sat at adjoining tables and we were the only group eating with our teacher. I played jacks in gym with some of the girls, and I was totally exhausted by the time the day was over. I was totally ready for the next day…

Except, none of that happened on my first day of kindergarten.

We wore uniforms with yellow shirt and navy blue pants that were pre-cuffed, so there was no way I would have been wearing stripes or having to keep rolling up my cuffs. It was raining out so we didn’t go to check out the monkey bars until the next day. I saw absolutely none of the big kids in the hall except for going in and out of school, and none of them intimidated me. None of the kids introduced themselves to each other because there weren’t a lot of us there. Some flu bug was going around and half the class wasn’t there, so our teacher had us do the introductions the next day when attendance was better. I stayed by myself during recess and watched the girls play jacks, wishing I could do it.

So how come my memory includes all those things that didn’t happen? While talking with my sister, she helped me piece together what really happened that day and pointed out my inconsistencies. Other students there that day reinforced what really went on, but it still took me ages to admit that my memory was definitely faulty. So what happened that changed the way I viewed that pivotal day in my life?

I have a theory about it. Sometimes when things don’t happen the way we envision them happening, our brains make up for it when we “remember” it in the future. Instead of tripping and falling and everyone laughing, we somehow barely held on and never fell. Instead of stuttering in class while giving a speech, we almost mis-pronounced one word but fixed it at the last second and no one noticed. Instead of that girl saying, “hell no” when we asked her out, she said, “I’d love to but I’m seeing someone,” and that guy turned out to have been, in our memories, Mr. Perfect, so no skin off our backs for that rejection. We remember things the way we do to save us from embarrassment and to pump up our self-esteem.

It works on so many levels. Even when things go well, our memories of the time period are still enhanced. I remember making the last shot in the championship basketball game and being hoisted on the shoulders of my teammates for a lap around the gym, even though I really just passed the ball to the guy who did that. I remember making the bowling team by bowling a perfect game, when really I only had 11 strikes in a row. Human beings have a natural inclination to enhance our memories by exaggerating or covering up for what really did happen. And why wouldn’t we? The people we interact with, for the most part, exist in different spheres from the people who shared the true memories with us anyway..

Except that that’s not the case anymore. With the inception of the internet, and now with social networking, we can still exist in those same spheres even when we don’t. Instead of me tweeting that I got a 1450 on my SATs and everyone believing me, Jeff, who was in my class at the time, remembers that I got a 750 and had to take it again instead. Not only that, but he re-tweets it, further sullying my reputation. Now, instead of being able to hype up that self-esteem with hyperbolic memories, we are forced to live with the best and the worst of ourselves, at all times, past and present.

And that’s not such a bad thing, is it?

Sam