Like the corners of my mind...

Do you remember your dreams? I can normally remember mine for an hour or two after I wake and then they just fade. But some remain; some just stick in your mind as an actual memory. I can still remember a dream from my innocent years, which involved me hiding in a car from a T-rex, strange but true. To my mind it’s as if that event actually took place, of course I know that it didn’t. But what is it that keeps that dream embedded in my grey matter for so many years? Some true events have less clarity than certain dreams. I’m sure at the time of the dinosaur dream there would have been some external influence that caused the dream but what that was I couldn’t say.

Memories in general are very strange, what we hold on to and what we let go off. My father died when I was just five; if he was still alive today and passed me in the street I wouldn’t recognise him. I have no memory of him what so ever and yet I can recall a time after he had finished playing cricket and I went out on the field and tried to push the big cast iron roller that was used to flatten the green. I know he was there but I cannot picture him. No matter how hard I try I cannot form a metal picture of my father.

Some memories just stick with us for the rest of our days whilst some just fade for whatever reason that may be, maybe they are disturbing memories, sad, unhappy times but that isn’t always the case, I can still clearly remember the day the policeman knocked on our door and told my mother that terrible news and how she then in turn came and told my brother and me, I can remember events that sometimes I wish I couldn’t. Most which stay with us are however probably joyous events, grand occasions, wedding days, children’s births etc but then some are just obscure memories that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, and in truth probably don’t mean that much to you. But our memories and our experience are part of our make up and what makes us the person we are today. If I were to suddenly lose my memory would that change the person I am today, would that change the way I dream? It must do, if you don’t know who you are, where you have come from it must change your out look on the world. Fears, loves, wishes, dreams would all vanish, you’d start all over again with a clean slate. You could redefine the person that you were. Without the external influences individual to each and every one of us whilst we grew up you would start to draw from everything around you now. But the way an adult perceives things is completely different to that of a child.

I have touched on this before, how every event and person around us moulds us into the person we are today. Examine your childhood, think back to the things you did as a child, the games you played, the friends you had, the holidays you went on, the music you listened to. Think about your parents and what they meant to you, think of the way you remember the world around you, world events (whenever 1987 is brought up in conversation I still immediately think the year of the Storm), the taboos of the day, the big scandal that we all remember happening at school (whatever that may have been for your particular school, we all had something). All of that has helped form a foundation and a basis for you today. Now think about the generation growing up today, try to place yourselves in their shoes and imagine what games you play now, what friends you have, what holidays you go on and what music you listen to. Think about what your parents mean to you, the world around you, world events, the taboos, and the scandal at school. Think how all of this is forming the foundation and the basis for the adults they are to become.

We all have memories, wishes and dreams that form the man or woman that we are and that push us forward to become that which we are meant to be.

Take care in the way you influence the children in your lives, that off day you had, when you were quick to snap and lost your temper, that day you shouted or spoke without thinking, that may just be the day that that child remembers and keeps with him or her for the rest of their days, that day may form the foundation of their adult life.