When I checked my e-mail this past weekend, the usual messages sat in the inbox waiting for me to either open them or lose them under the incoming week’s load of messages. There were the usual Poly e-mails, a mix of useless and important e-mails from my fraternity, and the spotting of Facebook responses. Looking down the endless list, one e-mail stuck out from the others. The Facebook team had not sent me the same usual “_____ (fill in blank with name of friend) wrote on your wall,” rather, a name from before Facebook appeared resting unsurely in my inbox.
I had not heard or seen this name for almost a decade. It was one of those things that transports you back to a different time and place—like a song from the first CD you owned is a bridge to your childhood or how the aroma of a smoky fire is a shuttle to summer at the lake. It is amazing how our minds are poised to accomplish such amazing feats. I was instantly brought back to my hometown, to my preteen years.
I open the e-mail. The message reads: “Hey every now and then past conversations resurface in my memory and sometimes I realize I’ve said some pretty awful things. I remember one time at lunch in middle school I said some pretty [awful] things to your face that were absolutely shameful. I don’t remember the exact details but I just remember that I was being a presumptive [jerk] and I know this is like a decade late but I just wanted to apologize. Anyways, I sincerely hope everything is going well, and again, sorry for my [immaturity.]”
As I read the lines of the message, I fell deeper into thought, conjuring images of my middle school, the small, white-brick lunch room filled with brown tables with fold-down benches. I tried hard to recall the situation being described in the message—I could not. Why does my mind not recall what others’ can? Is it that the situation was so unimportant to me, yet so deeply cutting to him, that it resurfaced in his mind and was unable to do so in mine? What caused my middle school peer to remember this ambiguous detail about our interaction almost a decade ago?
What causes us to recall such situations in our life? The simplest of triggers can immediately cause one to conjure up a myriad of memories—be it a touch, a smell, a noise, an event—they all have the power to send on to a different time on place. Anything can trigger such a response. What was the trigger that warranted my peer to send me a message? It is impossible to know the answer.
It is important to realize that situations that may appear to be nothing to one may in fact remain etched in another’s mind for years to come. Each of our memories helps to define the experiences we have had, and sculpts the ways in which we handle situations in our everyday lives. Each action we make impacts others around us and you never know when a memory will resurface in your or another’s life.
