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Sitting on my parent's couch, wrapped in a Mickey Mouse towel, waiting for my parents to finish shouting at each other. I don't know if I was waiting to take a bath or waiting to get dressed after one. I just remember waiting. I think I was two, because in other memories from that apartment I didn't know how to read and was aware of it. I learned to read around three, so yeah. Two.
Whenever I answer this question (and shrinks have asked me before) I always feel unforgivably melodramatic giving the real answer. I've considered making up something else, using some other memory from a slightly later time period, so that people won't give me the, "oh, you poor thing," look when they realize what I just said.
Ah, well. It's not actually a big deal, y'know? I bet lots of you remember your parents fighting later on when you were little. I just remember it first.
As for why it stands out, I don't know the answer. The other memories I have from that apartment include looking at the package for a plastic horse I kept for years (he was silvery grey and purple with a white mane and tail and I named him Cliff) and realizing that there was meaning in the markings on the package that I couldn't discern, but that if I took it to a grownup they'd be able to tell me what it said. Me finding my mother crying and remarking casually to her that I wasn't good at crying so quietly; I always made a lot more noise. I think she told me that grownups cry more quietly, and I accepted this as making perfectly good sense even though the implications of it didn't hit me until just now.
My biological father using a melonballer on some cantaloupe, or making me tuna fish. Very few memories of living with him; it wasn't a living arrangement that lasted very long.
I remember lining up my dolls on the floor at the end of my bed after I'd decapitated them brushing their hair. I matched the bodies to the heads in neat little rows so that my mother could put them back on for me.
A babysitter whose name I can't remember telling me that I wasn't going to be able to toast my Pop-Tart long enough to melt the frosting, that the crust part would melt long before the frosting did. I remember gravely accepting this as an indispensable piece of wisdom, a profound insight into the unexpected nature of things in this world. I've since passed it on more times than I can count, but I doubt anybody has been quite so impressed by the revelation as I was the first time I heard it, and some part of me is disappointed every time.
Random things. Maybe kids aren't great at deciding which memories are important. It's all shouting and plastic horses and Pop-Tarts with me.
Sitting on my parent's couch, wrapped in a Mickey Mouse towel, waiting for my parents to finish shouting at each other. I don't know if I was waiting to take a bath or waiting to get dressed after one. I just remember waiting. I think I was two, because in other memories from that apartment I didn't know how to read and was aware of it. I learned to read around three, so yeah. Two.
Whenever I answer this question (and shrinks have asked me before) I always feel unforgivably melodramatic giving the real answer. I've considered making up something else, using some other memory from a slightly later time period, so that people won't give me the, "oh, you poor thing," look when they realize what I just said.
Ah, well. It's not actually a big deal, y'know? I bet lots of you remember your parents fighting later on when you were little. I just remember it first.
As for why it stands out, I don't know the answer. The other memories I have from that apartment include looking at the package for a plastic horse I kept for years (he was silvery grey and purple with a white mane and tail and I named him Cliff) and realizing that there was meaning in the markings on the package that I couldn't discern, but that if I took it to a grownup they'd be able to tell me what it said. Me finding my mother crying and remarking casually to her that I wasn't good at crying so quietly; I always made a lot more noise. I think she told me that grownups cry more quietly, and I accepted this as making perfectly good sense even though the implications of it didn't hit me until just now.
My biological father using a melonballer on some cantaloupe, or making me tuna fish. Very few memories of living with him; it wasn't a living arrangement that lasted very long.
I remember lining up my dolls on the floor at the end of my bed after I'd decapitated them brushing their hair. I matched the bodies to the heads in neat little rows so that my mother could put them back on for me.
A babysitter whose name I can't remember telling me that I wasn't going to be able to toast my Pop-Tart long enough to melt the frosting, that the crust part would melt long before the frosting did. I remember gravely accepting this as an indispensable piece of wisdom, a profound insight into the unexpected nature of things in this world. I've since passed it on more times than I can count, but I doubt anybody has been quite so impressed by the revelation as I was the first time I heard it, and some part of me is disappointed every time.
Random things. Maybe kids aren't great at deciding which memories are important. It's all shouting and plastic horses and Pop-Tarts with me.
