Shrink Time with Act III

Time to get your mental eggs in a basket.

Try and recall something in the greatest detail from memory when you were a kid (21 or younger). Don't just print it off your memory press like a cheap photocopy, Literally inhabit yourself from that chosen period, re-see what you saw at that time, re-feel, re-understand.... become your former self at that time. Describe that moment as though it were happening now. How good are you at this? Can you bring it all back?

I am not a certified shrink, as my overtness fully exposes.

Here, I will go first. It was 1997 and my friend's grandma just closed down her comic book shop at the local mall. I am 15 years old and wandering around that same mall with no 'home base' anymore and wander into a CD shop. My cousin had introduced me to Marilyn Manson, recording his music videos off MTV and owning one of his CDs. I had $20.00 and saw the display with 3 of his releases. I purchase one of them with sweatty palms because well, this was a crucial moment, apparently. I stuff the new CD in my pocket, $13.99, and then wander down to the arcade to play Area 51, the laser gun game. I spend all of my money on it, still not able to get to the end, and then go home to play my new CD in my Sony boombox. Mom yells at me, "Turn that shit down!" So I put on my headphones and listen, sitting there paralyzed and docile, sponging it all in. It was an awesome day. I didn't often have money to spend like that as a teen so it was sort of a special occasion. Now I was "in" with my cousin's people who listened to that shit. But truthfully, I kept listening while they wandered away. Remembering this brings back feelings of anxiety and being like a slightly shakey kid wandering around in a big tough world. I can still remember this like it was yesterday.

No takers. Okay then, shrink games are not popular here...

I think it's just kind of a big ask right out of the gate, I guess. It's a pretty intimate thing to open with for anyone, let alone with someone you don't know especially well.

Anyway, I think the hallmark of super early memories is that we can't inhabit them, almost by definition, because they're invariably the fuzziest. I have some early memories, but they're not three-dimensional at all. And as a lot of studies and observations have shown, people often supplement, backfill, or wholesale invent memories based on all the things they learn (or decide) after.

You're probably right. The memory above has missing time as I only recall small pieces of that day but I could backfill the scenic things like the return trip home and how everything appeared as these details hadnt changed much over the years I lived there. But other things stand out and arent embellished when I think of them.