Once the noise in my life turned down to a humane volume, the past started knocking— softly at first, then like an Amazon driver who refuses to leave. And just like that, the memories came back: crooked, sticky, wild, and absolutely real.
I remember those five-week notices (mid-term report cards) from school — tiny paper bombs engineered solely to ruin your month. I used to sprint home like Jason Bourne with a Trapper Keeper, intercepting them before my parents could read the academic autopsy.
I remember my childhood bedroom — roughly the size of a coffin for a medium-sized hamster. A bed. A bureau. A closet I turned into a confessional, writing dramatic notes to no one and letters to a “someday” I was sure would be cooler than “today.”
I remember my beige rotary telephone with the cord so long and twisted it could’ve doubled as a municipal plumbing project. I’d pace in circles while talking to friends, dragging that cord like a medieval burden.
I remember throwing Chinese stars at my shed. No idea where I got them. Apparently I was preparing for a future as a suburban Long Island ninja. (The ninja career never took off. Shocking.)
I remember the urban legend that a man lived in our woods wearing nothing but a diaper. This was shared as casually as weather updates:
“Chance of rain. 40%. Chance of Diaper Man. High.”
I remember wanting to be bigger. Stronger.
Smarter. Cooler.
And mostly — I remember wanting to feel… less. Less shy. Less awkward. Less “too much” and “not enough” at the exact same time.
I remember tennis — my first love — saving me from myself more times than any sport should be responsible for.
I remember calling a girl I liked, and every time she answered, I’d panic and hang up. Courage was not my default setting.
I remember my dog Sheba, who followed me everywhere like she had secretly reviewed my future and decided, “Yeah. He’s gonna need supervision.”
I remember my first real art class — pastels in the teacher’s home — hating the chalk on my fingers but loving what my hands did when I stopped trying to be perfect.
I remember the world feeling small and slow — like everything important fit between Halloween and Christmas.
And I only remember now because I finally stopped running. Because the hamster wheel buckled. Because the noise went quiet enough for memory to pull up a chair and say, “We need to talk.”
When you stop moving, you make space for remembering. And when you remember, you make space for mercy.
I remember my grandmother — first in the basement, then upstairs once the dormer was built. She baked cookies capable of ending international conflict. She drove an old Impala with jade green elephants dangling from the mirror and once got out of a speeding ticket by casually announcing she used to build A-10 bombers. (Naturally, the officer thanked her for her service and backed away slowly.)
I remember sneaking downstairs to watch Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, eating Twinkies, Ho-Hos, and cupcakes with the curly icing on top like they were Olympic fuel.
I remember the first VCR I ever saw — at Peter’s house — and how Raiders of the Lost Ark nearly detonated my eight-year-old brain.
I remember every house my friends lived in, every parent’s name, every square inch of the neighborhood where childhood happened.
But most of all? I remember the things I didn’t think about at all:
purpose, meaning, identity, why we’re here, what it all adds up to.
Back then, living was simple. Feeling was the hard part.
And now — after the slowing, the stopping, the sitting — I’ve realized something:
Remembering isn’t about going backward. It’s about gathering.
Gathering all the pieces of yourself you dropped while you were busy surviving — the brave pieces, the scared ones, the sparkly ones, the weird ones — picking them up gently, and whispering:
“Oh. There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
That’s remembering. That’s returning. That’s the beginning of everything that comes next...
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