11:09 #6: MEMORIES

Aminat Badara
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read

Memories are sometimes a relief. And sometimes they’re torture. -Clay Jensen (13 Reasons Why)

Shortbread.

That’s the very first memory of my existence that I have. It’s funny that the first thing I remember about my life and existence is biscuit wrapped in a striped red, green and gold pack. Oh wait, there’s blue somewhere in there.

For the longest time, I’ve been trying to trace back what it is I have as memories and every single time it leads back to shortbread biscuit. It’s like I opened my eyes right after I was born and the first thing I saw was the wrap.

Of course the first memory was just an association with food. I remember always looking at my Tartan pinafore (which was my favourite outfit at the time), my mind automatically went to shortbread because both looked so much alike. It didn’t help that there was a Ghana-must-go bag that looked just like that somewhere in the house too. So sadly, my first memory was not as a result of my love for food but pure associations.

Shortbread wouldn’t be the last of my associative memories. More often than not, I find myself remembering things and time with something else that happened around that period. So sometimes, I could say that a person smells like 2006 when all I meant to say is that he smells like a perfume I came across in 2006. Or say a song feels like sadness when all that it is is that I somehow came across the song when I was sad.

Between then and now, I’m pretty sure over a million memories have been formed. Good, bad, downright ugly- every single thing has been backed up in the tiny little space in my big head. All of these associated with one thing or the other.

While associations are good, they mean one thing- that the good memories assigned to some painful memory gets lost in translation. So as time goes on, I find myself forgetting things that really should still form a part of who I am.

Psychologists say that your memories make you who you are. Does it mean that in forgetting the parts that are painful, one is losing an integral part of who one is? If so, what compass does one use to find oneself?

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