Memory Rush [Me]

I've known for a long time that my memories from when my daughter was a baby were, well, toast. I could remember looking at the pictures, and I could remember some facts, but my memories from the time I was married to her father, up through about the time she learned to walk, are pretty nonexistent. That's the time period when I fractured apart, and yeah, nothing's there. The time period just 'skips' in my head, like a scratched record. I was a horny teenager, and then I had a toddler.

I know that those memories are blacked out because there are so many unhappy stressful ones there. But there are also all my memories of my daughter being born, and being an infant, and getting to know her. And I don't have them. I'd take back all the memories of abuse just to have my memories of my baby back.

Today I got a memory back.

One of the reasons I haven't been writing too much lately (among several reasons) is that I've been going through old scrapbooks and scanning all the photos to digital format. I have a fear that they're all going to get destroyed or lost or something, and I want to have that visual record.

I was scanning photos from her first year, and at Ten Months, I got to a picture where she's in a grandparent's lap with some cousin or another, squirming to get down. There's a real sense of movement in the picture. And something about the movement, the look on her face, or the clothes she was wearing, triggered a memory. The first thing I got was the feeling of her little fat baby thighs in my hands. I remember holding her, squeezing her thighs, and the way they felt. I remember the smell of my baby's skin and hair, and the exact way she felt squished up against me in a hug, squirming to get down. I even remember the texture of the outfit she's wearing in the picture, the exact color of pink and the coarseness of the cloth. I remember that ten-month-old little girl. And I've been crying ever since.

Merry Christmas to me.