Memory

Memory is a funny thing.  Have you ever had the experience of talking about an event with someone else and discovering you have completely different recollections?  Yeah...  Funny.  I guess it has to do with how you experience the event and what it means to you.  Something that may have been of huge significance to me, may not have even registered with say, my sister.  So I remember every detail vividly, while she doesn't even remember being there.

I had this weird experience yesterday when I was researching something for my book.  I came across a site that listed chronologically all the shows a particular musician played over about a ten year period.  I know I was at one of his shows because I met him and ended up hanging out with him for a while afterward.

In my mind, this was either 1991 or 1992 and the period we were friends was around about six months.  When I saw the dates of the shows, I discovered the show I was at had to have been in 1993.  By 1993 I wasn't living in London anymore, but I did go there for 6 weeks or so over the university mid-year break and study leave. That would have been when I went to that show.  But that means the friendship I remember happening over 6 months or so, must have happened in a much shorter and more intense period of time.

Weird....

But in a way it makes sense.  I've been thinking a lot about this period in my life because things that happened then are infusing what's happening in my WIP.  I've been surprised by how emotional it has made me because it was, I thought, I fairly casual friendship that didn't mean much.  Realizing that it happened over such a short period makes me recognize that maybe it was more charged and intense than I remember.  And that could explain why I've been feeling so much.

Have you ever had this experience?  Do you and your friends and family argue over things you think you remember?