Memory Lock

When many people try to recall their first memories, they often have great trouble.  It really isn’t that they forgot.  I think that the real reason is that they simply can’t get their brains to call up the sights, sounds and sensations.  All of the information is there but the brain can’t bring it up to the surface.  When people are pressed, they will often describe their first memory as being playing outside at the age of three or four.  Its a genetic reality.  The human mind seems to have a barrier that prevents complete access to all of our memories.  It’s been my experience that this is all for the best.  My theory is that when I was born there was no barrier at all.  From the moment I was self aware, everything is crystal clear.  I didn’t develop much faster than a normal infant, I still had to learn my motor skills and adapt to my environment.  The difference is, I can recall everything as if it were happening right now.  I remember vividly how the doctor who assisted in my birth wore horn-rimmed glasses.  I remember my dad looking at me so proudly in the car on the way home that he ran through a red light.  I remember being completely content cuddled warmly in the hospital blankets, and the tiny shirt which was much to large for me at the time.  It wasn’t until I was 8 weeks old that my parents realized I was genuinely paying attention to things around me.

My dad was a programmer and worked from home.  He loved to sit me in his lap while he worked.  I watched everything with relish.  I soaked up everything I could.  Every click and every bit of code.  I was addicted to information.  My parents were true believers in educational television and regardless of my age, when I was in the room, and there was nothing they particularly wanted to see, educational channels were turned on.  I naturally loved them.  When I began to speak, my parents were ecstatic.  Often they assumed I was speaking gibberish because my tiny voice and mouth were physically unable to enunciate and convey what I was thinking.  It was through children shows that I learned what letters were, and how they could form words.  I was soon reading.  It became a parlor trick for my dad to sit me on his lap and have his friends watch me as I would move his mouse with great effort, and open up a program.  I was always hungry for knowledge, and I still am.  While I was still a baby it was just the same.  I was captivated by everything I saw.  When my body was matured enough for me to walk, I found new ways to learn.  I was also able to reach many of the books we had, and there were many times when an aunt or uncle would find me on the floor with a book and run immediately over to take it away, assuming I was going to tear the pages.  With every book I found, it created a desire to read more.  It pained me to find a word or phrase, or idea that I didn’t understand.  To prevent that, I learned more.  I quickly realized that for me, reading only meant physically seeing the page.  I was able to recall it and read it again later, word for word if I had to.  I would riffle through the pages of the books and pause long enough to get full sight, and I was able to complete whole books in minutes.  Adults assumed it was a game to me to feel the wind blow passed my face, and smell the paper and print.

There are some people in this world with an uncanny ability to calculate large math problems in seconds.  Thats pure genius.  In raw calculations I was perhaps a bit above average, but it appeared more so because I simply remembered the solutions to the problems.  The more I took in, the faster I could recall information.  It was like flexing a muscle and feeling it grow.  In my early years I took in more than I revealed.  Nobody but I knew exactly what I was learning, and to what extent.  It made day to day situations a breeze for me.  To my parents, I was an ideal child.  My memory seemed to be a blessing a miracle that was perfect.  I soon found the dark side of this miracle.  I remembered EVERYTHING.  That meant good and bad.  Every time I witnessed someone cry, every time someone was injured, every time someone was cruel it was engrained in my memory forever.  I did my best to flood the bad things out with good things but when I was nervous the bad always rushed back in.  Fortunately for me, as a child humans are shielded from most things.  Try as we might, they would become locked in my mind for better or for worse…