The Red Leotard

My very first memory is of the red leotard that I received for my third birthday.

As my daughters' third birthday approached, I felt inclined to provide them with a similar memory. I scoured ebay for matching leotards, but they were impulsively cast aside in the excitement of the birthday festivities.

Recently, my local drive-thru espresso stand baristas were recalling the extreme heat this past summer when our town lost power. I have no memory of this - something that happened less than a year ago. So how can I expect my girls to remember their third birthday 30 years from now?

And as fate would have it, Tristyn was scheduled to have surgery one week after her birthday. A client told me the same surgery was his first memory. What if her first memory is being in my lap on the surgery table while I held her arms down so the anesthesiologist could hold a mask over her face? And what about Jaeda? Will she remember the day mommy left her behind to take her sister on "a field trip to the hospital"? The sibling bond is a strong one, and identical twins even more so. My brother and I are 2 years apart yet I have a vivid memory of the first time I was separated from him (for more than a day at school). I was 13 years old.

I know this is the beginning of many things that I will not be able to control in my daughters' lives.

Memory is a mysterious thing. We file them away and recall them at random. I heard an NPR story about perception of time studies. Apparently, the older we get, time appears to pass more quickly. The reason for this phenomenon is that when we are young, everything is new, so our brains take longer to graph the new experience, and therefore more likely to cement a memory that can be recalled in later years. After 35 years of birthday cake and similar circumstance, its no wonder I can't remember most, except for the ones that were a little different.

So what is the secret to staying young? It's switching up the routine of daily life and challenging our brain to create more memories, thereby SLOWING DOWN the passage of time.

And what better way to do that?

Have children.