I Remember This...But Not That!

My long-term memory is still really sharp, but my short-term memory not so much. For instance I can still remember:

- Being in my old-fashioned pram carriage as a baby(my mother confirmed this)

- An orange and black striped tiger tail hanging in my crib as a baby (my mother also confirmed)

- Being really frustratated being really itchy and trying to scratch but not being able to( I was 3 months old and had chicken pox from the kid next door and my mother confirmed she had pinned socks to my long-sleeve shirt so I couldn't scratch)

- My mother's cousin's Scottish father-in-law with his thick accent I loved and his bagpipe music I would have only been about 4 years old as he died shortly after.

- The sweet smell of my uncle's pipe, and unlike cigarettes, cigars, or weed, the pipe smelled nice.

- My grandparents having a glass of red wine with dinner every night

- Wading in the creek at the cottage and squishing the clay at the bottom in-between my toes

-Catching frogs at camp and falling in the water and getting soaking wet and having water dripping off my clothes on the bus ride all the way home.

- That time my psychotic hamster escaped from his cage and got stuck in the furnace vent and died and we could smell the decomposing carcas for 6 months or so.

- Doing cartwheels and handstands etc. on the lawn with my friends.

- My little orange plastic duck toy I'd always bring to the beach and play in the sand with

- My first time in a plane and one of my ear drums ruptured and "juice" came out of it and how painful it was and I was deaf for 3 days.

- The first time I went to Europe and how I instantly felt at home.

- That time in highschool when it was hot and my friends and I opened up the classroom window and sat out on the roof and had our lunch

- When a boy wrote "Free f*ck" on the boy's bathroom wall and put my phone number in grade 8 and  I returned the favour in the girl's bathroom with his number.

- In grade 1 when the mean teacher made a kid stand on a chair in the middle of the class with a wad of gum stuck on the end of his nose, punishment for chewing gum in class

- That time I got lost at my babysitter's and a lady brought me to a cop and I begged him not to return me as the sitter was abusive and he promished he wouldn't let her hurt me but she beat me up anyway and that's when I leartned you can't even trust the police.

- That time as a teen I called into the radio station requesting a song and I stayed up all night waiting and they never even played it.

- I was in the kitchen making hundreds of pirogi  spread all over the counter when I heard the news on the radio about the Challenger explosion

- The time my cousin and I were out on the snowmobiles and we hit a snowbank and I went flying head-first into the snowbank and he told me Don't tell your mother!!

-When I was a kid I was walking holding a lit candle and I trip and fell and the "shag" carpet( this was the 70's remember) caught fire so I stomped it out and covered the burned spot with a chair and when my mother got home from work I just told her I had "re-decorated."

- I was only 4-5 years old and my cousin let me steer the motorboat

- My grade 5 French teacher was waiting at a light in her car  when a guy grabbed her thru the opened window and slashed her face. She was so traumatized she lost her mind and never came back to work and I never saw her again.

- I was 12 YR old and I "skipped" school and played "hooky" one day and stayed home as the lock on our front door was broken and I didn't want to leave my dog home alone in case someone stole him.

...and yet I can't remember:

- why I came into the room

- What I had for dinner yesterday

- Where I just left my drink

-Where I put that thing I wanted to mail

- What I wanted to post on Twitter

- The thing I wanted to add to the grocery list

- What I was planning to do next

- How many years it's been since..........?

- How long ago since I last took that medicine

- What so-and-so's last name is

If I took that pill or not

etc.

Sometimes we don’t need happiness, just a little less pain.-Sherry Cam