Something Close to Memories

I don’t know if I’m the only one who does, but do you ever stop and recall your earliest childhood memories? I don’t mean stopping in purpose and spending time just recalling. I’m talking about remembering, in a somewhat random twist of event, something that you’re sure happened to you at some point in the past. It’s difficult to completely explain, really. I don’t just recall them; they flood into me like a great rush, coming in all at once…I actually live in them—as if I were back in that time when I first slid down the dinosaur slide and thinking that it was the happiest moment of my life. Or when I was around four years old, I looked up in the sky and thought of how I was probably a protagonist of my own story and everyone else was just there to play along in their subordinate roles…and the realization years later that this was not true: I was not the main character of this world and everyone else had their own equally valid primary roles.

These memories will come one after the other, then I get zapped back to the present and I almost wouldn’t believe that I am years older and that so much has passed.

I remember how shit scared I was, watching Calvento Files with everyone in the family engrossed in their seats. The story was about a girl and his family, all of whom were ambushed by the girl’s former lover and his friends. They were sleeping in a hut when the killers came. They all died, except one who was able to hide in a room.

I remember how my yaya used to force me to feed on my sandwich when I was in nursery. She told me she’d have to cut my insides and place the sandwich in. Or that time when we would prepare for our classes, back when my sister and I were in elementary. I couldn’t finish my food, and my dad would watch over us, and I’d secretly give my food to the cat or scatter it all over my plate. Me looking at my then girlfriend from afar, realizing that I just broke her heart and feeling like a complete asshole. We're high school classmates, it was February 14, and I just broke up with her that afternoon.

But the odd thing is, I don’t just remember the memory. I remember everything—the emotions as I felt them during that time, the clear picture, the people involved…

When I try explaining this strange phenomenon to my few closest friends or even my ex's, I look in their eyes and I’m sure that they’re not taking me seriously. They'd shift to an altogether unrelated topic or brush it off, because who wants to talk about memories deeper than what they really were anyway?

But you see, these for me aren’t just memories. Something else separates them from memories, mere figments in my mind that I only vaguely remember. They hold emotions, and a sharp sense of clarity. And the reason why I fuss over them is that I get troubled and as emotionally invested in them as if I were living in that actual time.

It happened again this time. What triggered the sudden rush this time was a book I was reading: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. By reading the book, I’ve come to realize that I’m probably a wallflower, someone who observes too much and makes inferences...some of which are totally false, while most are correct. The greater realization, however, is that like a leech, I attach myself to certain events, movies, and books in my life. When I do, they become a part of me, a parcel of the totality of my emotional quotient. Like learning something new, but it's not even a piece of information or knowledge, but emotion. Raw and crisp.

I've probably bored or lost you at this point already. I'm not even expecting you to take me seriously. But it's always been that way.