What is your earliest memory of your own life?

treeguy64

treeguy64

Hari Om, y'all!
Location
Austin, TX.
Among my old elementary school chums, I'm known for my amazing memory: I remember things about my friends and their families that my friends have long forgotten. I can remember specific days from my first six years of life, what I was doing, what I was wearing, who was with me, etc. I have found that my memory makes some people uncomfortable, so I don't bring things up, when I feel that doing so will unnerve someone I'm with.

That being said, my first memory is being in my playpen, in the dining room, while our cleaning lady ironed, off to the side, near the kitchen door. A soap opera was on TV. I was three years old, based on who our cleaning lady was.

One odd thing about having the memory that I have is that all of my life is compressed into a very, very brief stay on this planet, since I can remember things from more than sixty years ago, as if they happened yesterday

What is your earliest memory of your life?
 

I remember swimming

Upstream

it was some kind of marathon with lotsa competitors


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Then, BAM


…I’m dancing with chikins


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everthing after that was just one party after another

even when tearing down an old camp trailer

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The earliest thing I remember is my mother, sister, and I (and maybe my grandmother) flat on our stomach in the field under a tree and planes buzzing overhead. I raised my head to look up at them and my mother shoved my head back down to the ground. It was war planes flying overhead in Italy. I was born in 1942 so don't know what year that was when that happened, but it was during the WW2 I guess. I remember a few things from 5-7 years old while still living in Italy, but not with specific details like you do. I often wonder why we remember some things and not others.
 

I remember being diapered by my father, turning my head left (which of course I didn't know left from right at the time) and the TV was on to Uncle Miltie (Milton Berle) and my dad laughed so hard I got a scratch from the diaper pin. Although that is my first memory, I have several other memories from that through age 4 and of course, beyond. My friends, all through my life, have said I have an amazine memory and recall details and events they have long forgotten.
 
Yes I'm the same I can remember many things from my very early years... it was quite traumatic, so perhaps that's the reason.

I could list several things which are still very strong in my memory before the age of 5.. but the one that stands out most was when at around the age of 15, I mentioned to my mother about a specific memory I had , that only she and I could have known , and had never been spoken about in my family.. and she looked at me in shock and said, ''you can't possibly remember that, you were only 14 months old''...that was my first real clear memory..but there was many after that!!
 
Going to India in 1945 or 1946 on a ship in the Suez Canal, I
remember seeing the superstructure and masts of sunken
ships, I was 4 years old.

Mike.
 
I somewhat remember being up on a train in Olean N.Y. and sent to Garrett, Indiana to live with an Aunt and her adopted daughter. I was 6 years old and the Conductor was told to watch over me. Before that day, everything is a blank.
 
I remember hanging onto my dad's neck as we swam across a huge swimming area in a lake out to a floating platform and then swam back. I was around 20 months old. I also remember what I was wearing when my mother and I rode a train overnight to visit my grandparents when I was two. I vividly remember that the attendant gave me a little pillow and I kept dropping it on the floor until my mother took it away from me and I threw a tantrum. Both of these occasions were confirmed by my mother.
 
While still a baby, I remember a doctor and a nurse leaning over me and the doctor touching my chest...

In later life I often wondered why I had a small scar near my left nipple and one day my mother said that when I was born, I had a cyst there which the doctor removed. I have some other vague memories from early life.. In one, I was in my pram and my brother was pulling on the handle. Mother told him to be careful not to 'cowp' it. (Cowp is a very old English word meaning, in this context, to topple or overturn. It was common in W.Scotland, but I haven't heard it used much recently).
 
We moved when I was two and a half. I don't remember that first house, but I have a very strong memory of being allowed to sit on top of a stack of mattresses that were piled up in the back of a truck of some kind. When I told my parents about the memory as a young woman, they were astounded. They had in fact strapped a stack of mattresses onto that truck to transport them from our old house to our new one!

More recently I searched online for an image of the truck as I recalled it. I remembered it was a weird looking thing, and some diligent searching finally unearthed why!!!
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I was at my Italian grandma's house. I would have been about 4. She gave me a dollar bill. Minutes later my older cousin took it from me because he said it was his.
 
I shared a room with my older brother and sister while I was able to stand but still using a crib to sleep at night. I don't know how old I was, probably between one and two, but I remember standing in the crib while my mother made the beds and talked to me, etc.
 
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I vaguely remember a family vacation to Disneyland when I was three years old.

Most of my early childhood memories were connected to school. In first grade we lived on a farm in the country, so I remember riding the bus to school when I was six.

I have a distinct memory of a brief moment when I was standing in front of a wall calendar in my parents' kitchen on my birthday and thinking to myself. "I am seven on the seventh." I have a vivid memory of a classmate in second grade who kept chasing me around the playground trying to kiss me. Unfortunately, also in second grade I have a vivid memory of my mother accidentally running over my kitten as she drove out of our driveway to take me to school.

Another vivid memory... when I was a child I had a large ceramic piggy bank that was kept on a shelf in my room. From time to time I would get a chair to take down my piggy bank so I could count my money. One time I accidentally dropped piggy and it crashed on the floor... coins and parts of piggy went everywhere. I think that is one of the reasons why as an adult, I am so conservative and careful with my money.

.
 
My memories take me back before the age of 3, before we moved from Saskatchewan to Alberta. Unfortunately, those memories were due to traumatic events which I recall in detail. Some of those events are hazy in the memories of my older sisters, and they are sometimes awestruck that I remember them with clarity. They are 3 yrs. older, and 9 yrs. older than me.
 
I remember some things at the age of 3. I remember being in my crib. I had names for the bars on the crib but not real names just silly made up names. Being at my Grandmas laying on a cot while the adults talked around the table. There was a coat rack at the foot of the cot and they would wiggle it from time to time and I would watch the shadow of the coats moving on the wall. After awhile it lulled me to sleep which I guess was their intention.
 
I remember playing with a colorful butterfly mobile my parents had attached to my crib when I was a baby. I got much delight out of it and feel my love of bright colors stems from this experience. :love_heart:
 
I have some memories from about age, 2. My room was on the second floor. I could hear something running around on the roof. Turns out we had squirrels running around. My dad was doing something in the cellar. He left the door open. I was crawling on the floor and went down to the top of the cellar stairs. I remember seeing a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. My mom saw me on the stairs and screamed. I guess they came and got me. I have lots of memories of when I was 4-5. But now, my memory is shot.
 
My first memory is of sitting in a wooden chair on a rainy day as I ate a cheese sandwich and watched a cartoon about a tiger. I was about four at the time, and I think the combination of sensory inputs anchored the memory...
 
Around age three, my father and I rolling small metal cars down a piece of plywood propped against the seat of the couch. I have many memories of "the old neighborhood" before my family moved to another city when I was five.
 
I remember when I was 4yrs old and we were visiting my Grandmother. She was in bed and on oxygen. My Mom took me in and I got really frightened. She passed away the following year and a month before she passed all the family took pictures with her in her room. I can still remember that I was still frightened, but I am happy I have the picture and sad that I really didn't get to know her. I'm sitting on the bed and my older brother is standing and my sister is standing near me. A lot of my cousins are in the picture , but not all of them were there.
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Sassycakes said:
I remember when I was 4yrs old and we were visiting my Grandmother. She was in bed and on oxygen. My Mom took me in and I got really frightened. She passed away the following year and a month before she passed all the family took pictures with her in her room. I can still remember that I was still frightened, but I am happy I have the picture and sad that I really didn't get to know her. I'm sitting on the bed and my older brother is standing and my sister is standing near me. A lot of my cousins are in the picture , but not all of them were there.
View attachment 61148
Click to expand...

How lovely that you have this photo, and what fun you must have had with
so many cousins. Beautiful family!
 
Pinky said:
How lovely that you have this photo, and what fun you must have had with
so many cousins. Beautiful family!
Click to expand...


I had the best cousins and we always had great times together and we still do, Sadly many of my cousins have passed away,but the ones remaining are still really close. Because the family was soo large my brother had many cousins his age and the same with me and my sister. I really miss those carefree old times.
 

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